


Unlikely, but Not Impossible

by aprilrcho



Category: BLACKPINK (Band), TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25323139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilrcho/pseuds/aprilrcho
Summary: Minatozaki Sana and Chou Tzuyu had never met before this year, but in a way, it was kind of inevitable that they would.If you ask Sana, it was destiny. If you ask Tzuyu, it was just a matter of probability.
Relationships: Chou Tzuyu/Minatozaki Sana, Im Nayeon/Yoo Jeongyeon, Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban | Lisa, Myoui Mina/Son Chaeyoung
Comments: 61
Kudos: 226





	1. Sin City

_August 18, 2019_

Kim Jennie starts her morning, just as she does every morning, with coffee.

Though three long, summery months have passed since she last made the familiar trek from her apartment to Grounds, the biggest café on campus, her feet carry her along the narrow streets on autopilot as she absentmindedly reviews her schedule for the day.

As a freshman at Ewha University, Seoul’s preeminent women’s university, Jennie became a regular at Grounds when her then-new friend, Myoui Mina, picked up a part-time job as a barista there. Mina served Jennie her first cup of coffee, a piping-hot Americano (or a Minamericano, as Mina likes to call them, much to her friends’ eye-rolling, secretly amused displeasure), and thus began Jennie’s love affair with coffee. 

Every day since then, Jennie found herself in the same seat every morning, sipping the same drink: Americano, black, no sugar. Tucked into the corner of the café, she sits with her back to the bookshelves lining one wall and the coffee shop’s wide-paneled window to her left. She likes this table, her usual spot, because it affords her the best vantage point for people watching, her favorite pastime.

Today is no different. After placing her order with an unfamiliar barista, perhaps someone from Hongik, the nearby men’s university, Jennie settles into her seat and idly scans the coffee shop while she waits. At this time, five past nine on the day before class starts, there are few other patrons to hold her attention, and her thoughts drift to her first two years of university.

Jennie didn’t come to Ewha to make friends; she came to _succeed_ , to outperform her classmates and secure a high-paying position at a prestigious investment bank. In spite of this outward motivation, she came upon her first friend, Kim Jisoo, by chance when they were paired as freshman roommates.

Goofy and even-tempered, Jisoo is Jennie’s polar opposite, and – as these things tend to work – the two became best friends. While Jennie is meticulous, tightly-wound, and ambitious to a fault, Jisoo is disorganized, easygoing, and seems to love sleep more than could possibly be healthy. She’s late-night cup ramen and slapstick comedies, warm and good-natured and there when you need her. 

But most importantly, Jisoo is brave as hell. The last day of orientation, when Jennie stormed into their room after breaking up with her high school boyfriend and found Jisoo half-asleep, eating chips in bed, she immediately unleashed her temper on the unsuspecting older girl. For the next fifteen minutes, she railed at Jisoo for her lack of drive, her messiness, and anything else that came to Jennie’s mind in the moment.

Instead of quailing under Jennie’s fury, like a sane person would, Jisoo calmly waited for Jennie’s rage to exhaust itself, continuing to eat her chips as if nothing were happening. Then, once Jennie’s storm quieted, Jisoo chuckled and said,

“Wow, fuck you too, I guess.” Then, sitting up to shove her half-empty bag in Jennie’s astonished face, she asked, “Do you want some chips?”

From that moment onward, Jisoo became the most important person in Jennie’s life, and that encounter turned into a story Jisoo tells with great relish every time Jennie meets a new person.

Jennie’s second friend came in the form of Im Nayeon, the irrepressible, borderline-psychotic (in Jennie’s words), fellow hot bitch (in Nayeon’s words) who sat next to Jennie in her first economics class and refused to stop talking until Jennie agreed to get coffee with her after the lecture ended.

And if Jisoo is Jennie’s foil, Nayeon is Jennie’s mirror. Headstrong, ambitious, and tirelessly social, Nayeon shares only a single quality with Jisoo: their willingness (and almost eagerness, Jennie thinks sometimes) to put Jennie in her place.

Once they sat down for lunch that day, it took about thirty seconds – at which point Nayeon called their professor an ‘insufferable man-child who should’ve been bullied more as a kid’ and Jennie snorted diet soda out of her nose – for Jennie and Nayeon to hit it off. Fresh off a gap year spent traveling through Europe, Nayeon was older than Jisoo, even, and worldly in a way Jennie planned to become, and the pair became fast friends.

Jennie introduced Nayeon to Jisoo later that week, only to regret it immediately when the older girls swiftly ganged up on her, pinning her down to pinch her cheeks and ruffle her hair. Even as she swatted them away, though, Jennie felt an unfamiliar warmth bloom in her chest at the tenderness of it all. It felt new and vastly different from anything she had experienced before; it felt like having a family.

After that, Nayeon took the lead on friend-making endeavors, and their little family grew rapidly. The next addition was Park Jihyo, a doting, astoundingly loud freshman on the cheerleading squad with Nayeon. Despite being the youngest, Jihyo quickly became the ‘mom friend,’ doling out everything from band-aids and thoughtful advice to chastising slaps on the wrist.

A couple weeks later, Nayeon showed up at lunch with a beautiful, reserved Japanese student she’d met in her introductory international relations class. For twenty minutes, Mina ate almost silently, simply observing the dynamic of the four older girls and only responding when asked direct questions.

Any doubts about the soft-spoken girl fitting into their fast-talking, sarcasm-as-a-love-language dynamic instantly dissipated, however, when halfway through lunch, Mina wordlessly leaned over and plucked Jisoo’s phone from her hands, interrupting the Korean girl’s furious attempts to overcome an obstacle in her latest game obsession. “You’re doing it so wrong it _hurts_ ,” Mina muttered, completing the task in about fifteen seconds before handing the phone back to an awestruck Jisoo.

From then on, the five freshmen were inseparable, forcing each other (mostly Jisoo) to stay up an extra hour to study and dragging each other (pretty much just Nayeon) out of parties at three in the morning. Jennie and Jisoo’s room became their home base, and though they continued to make friends throughout the year, it was there that they returned each day, just the five of them, to share gossip and notes and tales of their exploits.

It wasn’t until the following fall, when Nayeon burst into their library study room clutching the wrist of a tall, stunning, and thoroughly unamused freshman, that their group saw the addition of two new members.

The first was Taiwanese whiz kid Chou Tzuyu. As Nayeon enthusiastically explained to the four startled girls in the study room, she was the TA for Tzuyu’s econ class, in which the younger girl had finished their first quiz and walked out of class five minutes into the allotted fifty-minute period. “She got every answer right,” Nayeon declared proudly, pulling Tzuyu’s slightly crumpled, graded quiz from her bag.

Casting a sidelong glance at the younger girl, who merely stared impassively back at her, she added with a smirk, “Plus, look at her. She’s a hot bitch too.”

With Tzuyu came Son Chaeyoung, the smooth-talking, tattooed philanderer whose only commonality with Tzuyu was that they were both freshmen. The short to Tzuyu’s tall, the brash to Tzuyu’s restrained, Chaeyoung barks louder than she bites, an expression she’d turn into an innuendo given the opportunity.

Seemingly out of place among the generally cold, aloof other girls, Chaeyoung sort of fell into their laps when, a couple days and several cajoling texts from Nayeon later, Tzuyu arrived at their lunch table with the shorter girl in tow, said, “Chaeyoung too,” then sat down with no further comment and began eating.

Unexpected but not unwelcome, Chaeyoung proved to be an indispensable cornerstone to their group. A burst of color. The feisty artist lends balance to their dynamic, rounding out their odd, unlikely, happy little family.

“Miss me, hoe?” Nayeon asks, flopping down into the seat across from Jennie and startling her from her reminiscence.

With a hand on her chest to calm her racing heartbeat, Jennie shoots the older girl a dirty look. “You’re late.”

“What’s thirty minutes between friends?” Nayeon chirps saccharinely, reaching over the table to give Jennie’s cheek a squeeze. “Besides, I have _so_ much to tell you, I promise it’s worth the wait.”

“I thought we were planning the IB meeting,” Jennie groans, batting her hand away.

Nayeon waves her hand dismissively and sits back, picking up her iced coffee. “I lied. I’m doing that with Tzuyu in a bit,” she says, taking a sip. Leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, she adds, “I just wanted to gossip for a little. I have so much shit to talk, and no one talks shit better than you, Jen.”

A smile tugging at the corner of her lips, Jennie rolls her eyes affectionately. She should’ve known better, she figures. “Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”

Nayeon grins gleefully, bunny teeth showing. “Amazing. First of all,” she pauses to whip out her phone, typing something in before flipping it to face Jennie. “Someone made a quiz about us called ‘Which member of Sin City are you?’ I’ve taken it six times, but I keep getting _you_.”

Jennie blinks at the screen, a little taken aback. Ever since she was young, Jennie’s parents instilled in her the value of status, reminding her frequently that ‘if you’re not someone, you’re no one.’ So last winter, when the campus community at large bestowed upon her friend group a nickname, one that reflects in equal measure both the fear and admiration with which people seem to consider them, Jennie saw no reason to object.

With nearly 20,000 students, Ewha is full of cliques, and it’s not uncommon for some to acquire this kind of campus-wide fame (Jennie blames it on a combination of Korea’s idol-worship culture and social media). The quiz-making, however, is a first, and Jennie is both surprised and a little disturbed. 

“Listen to this: ‘Beautiful, accomplished, ruthless – what sin are you? Take this quiz to find out which member of Sin City matches your personality.’ Flattering isn’t it?” Nayeon reads with a snicker.

Jennie wrinkles her nose. “Not really, not if you’re taking it and getting me. Jesus, what kind of person do they think I am?”

“A much cooler one than you actually are, evidently,” the older girl fires back without looking up from her phone. “Just sent it to the group chat. You can take it yourself and see if you’re as unique as you think you are.”

Jennie scoffs and takes a sip of her coffee, knowing full well that she’s going to take the damn quiz the second Nayeon leaves. “Was there more?” she prompts, earning another delighted smile from Nayeon, who puts her phone down again.

“Of course,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Word on the street is, our Jihyo found herself a Hongik boyfriend during her stint at the Blue House. I guess gluttony means making political and _personal_ connections at the same time.”

Jennie’s eyes widen. “No way. Who?”

“I don’t know yet,” Nayeon says with a shrug. “I’ll grill her at practice later and let you know what I find out. I hear he’s hot, though.”

“Good for her. I don’t know where she finds the time, but I’m sure it’s exciting to have a new boyfriend,” Jennie muses. Between coursework and extracurriculars, Jennie hasn’t had time to even think about dating, much less actually do it.

Nayeon quirks an eyebrow at her. “Jealous? Careful there, Jen, your envy is showing.”

“Shut up, greedy,” Jennie shoots back, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you too,” Nayeon says, blowing a kiss to Jennie, then glances down at her watch. “Speaking of greed, I gotta run. I was supposed to meet Tzu to go over stock pitches ten minutes ago.”

Jennie laughs, tapping her own watch reprovingly. “Is lateness a sin? It should be. Something about time being money?”

“It would be the opposite of greed then, but nice try, bitch.” Nayeon stands up, picking up her coffee. “See you at home,” she tosses over her shoulder before making her way out of the café.

The walk to the library is short, but Nayeon gets sidetracked striking up conversations with every friend (Im Nayeon has no acquaintances, only friends, she maintains) she passes on the way. By the time she arrives at the library, it’s past eleven, nearly forty minutes after she was supposed to meet Tzuyu.

As soon as she walks in, she spies the Taiwanese girl sitting at a table near the entrance; 172cm tall and gorgeous, Tzuyu stands out anywhere. Nayeon skirts around the table, hoping to startle the younger girl, but before she can cover Tzuyu’s face with her hands, the other girl cuts her off without looking up, “You’re late.”

Nayeon sighs. “I swear, you’re like a little Jennie. Only meaner.” She walks around the little table to sit across from the younger girl, who doesn’t even spare her a glance, eyes trained on her computer.

“I drafted a presentation,” Tzuyu says, and Nayeon scoffs, leaning over the table to push Tzuyu’s laptop shut.

“That can wait. Don’t you want to gossip with me for a little?” she cajoles, only to be promptly shot down by a blank look from the younger girl.

“About what? Class hasn’t even started yet.” Without waiting for an answer, Tzuyu reopens her computer to continue preparing for their meeting.

Undeterred, Nayeon again tries to draw Tzuyu into conversation. “Did you know Jihyo has a boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I heard–” Nayeon frowns and stares accusatively at Tzuyu. “Wait, how did you know?”

“She told me,” Tzuyu responds flatly, as if to say, _how else would I know?_

Nayeon nods slowly. “Right. I forgot that you’re her baby.” Tzuyu just shrugs by way of reply, continuing to type, and Nayeon sits back to consider the stoic younger girl.

Last fall, Tzuyu caught Nayeon’s attention immediately, first with her striking appearance and again with her intellect. Nayeon liked Tzuyu’s vibe, recognizing a familiar steel in the Taiwanese freshman, and thought she’d fit into their group nicely.

But it was more than that. Nayeon would never admit it, but her true motivation behind ‘recruiting’ (as she called it) Tzuyu into their family was less about her beauty or brains and more about the inexplicable urge she felt the first time she laid eyes on Tzuyu – one that the others soon shared – to protect the younger girl. 

There’s just something delicate and precious, something incongruously fragile about Tzuyu. And although they all quickly learned that the Taiwanese girl can level a field with a single, withering glare, the older girls still find themselves paying special attention to their inscrutable _maknae_ , buying her meals and warding off hopeful suitors like smothering parents.

“What about you?” Nayeon probes, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Are you going to accept any of the confessions from those adorable Hongik boys this year?”

Tzuyu doesn’t even gratify that with a response, and Nayeon huffs, finally giving up and pulling her own computer out of her bag. “You’re no fun,” she grumbles, to which Tzuyu simply nods, a hint of a smile pulling at the corner of her lips.

For the next hour, the pair works in silence. Since it’s the first week of the semester, their Investment Banking Club meeting is tomorrow afternoon instead of Thursday evening, their usual meeting slot. As Vice President, Nayeon was meant to set the agenda, but creating stock pitches requires a lot of math and research, neither of which she enjoys, so she enlisted the help of Tzuyu, their resident quant.

After reading over the presentation one last time, Nayeon closes her laptop and cracks her knuckles in satisfaction. “Looks great. Good work, Chou.”

Tzuyu hums and shuts her computer as well, sliding it into her bag. As she stands up to leave, she sees Nayeon start to open her mouth, but she’s saved from whatever uncorroborated hearsay the older girl is about to spout by the sound of her phone vibrating.

“Yes?”

There’s some scuffling, then the sound of heavy breathing as Chaeyoung’s muffled voice comes through the line, “I need help. Can you come home?”

“Okay.”

“Really?” The other girl sounds surprised. “I haven’t even said why.”

Tzuyu glances at Nayeon, who looks like she’s bursting with the need to gossip. “It’s fine. I’ll come,” Tzuyu says before ending the call.

Hearing her, Nayeon pouts. “Where are you going?”

“Home.” With no further explanation, Tzuyu pushes her chair in and walks toward the exit, leaving a sulking Nayeon alone at the table.

“You’re the worst, Tzu,” Nayeon calls at Tzuyu’s retreating back, making the younger girl smile inwardly before pushing through the library doors.

Tzuyu’s strides are long, carrying her swiftly over the few blocks between the library and her apartment complex, chosen in part for its convenient location. When she reaches the unassuming brick building, she stops for a moment and stares up at the rows of windows facing the street, each a portal to someone’s little world.

Three floors up, a windowsill is guarded by two matching figurines, a puppy and a lion cub; that one’s hers. The toys were a gift from Nayeon – baby animals for their babies, as she’d said with cackle. Just below, a small plant suns itself against the windowpane of the Arcade, their nickname for the apartment shared by Jihyo, Mina, and Jisoo. That’s the other reason Tzuyu and Chaeyoung were persuaded to move in here: the proximity to Jihyo, their self-proclaimed mother, who claimed she needed to keep an eye on them.

Tzuyu punches in the door code and steps into the air-conditioned lobby. On her way up, she pauses at the second floor landing and contemplates dropping by the Arcade, but the sound of gunshots trickling through the door suggests Mina and Jisoo are engaged in a game, so she continues up the stairs, not wanting to interrupt.

Plugging their passcode, 2314 (“Our birthdays, Tzu, isn’t it clever?” “… It’s practically 1234, Chaeng.”) into the keypad, Tzuyu swings open the door to her apartment to reveal a chaotic scene.

Open boxes, half full with textbooks and clothes, are scattered across the ground, and piles of socks, jeans, and ripped T-shirts cover most flat surfaces of the living room. If she didn’t know any better, Tzuyu would think they’d been robbed.

But she does. “Chaeyoung,” Tzuyu begins, just as the Korean girl comes barreling out of her room, a bundle of sweatshirts in her arms.

“I’ve just started unpacking and there’s tons to do, and I still need to go buy notebooks for class, but I have soccer tryouts in an hour and I can’t miss the first day,” Chaeyoung babbles frantically, dumping the sweatshirts on the ground before coming to a stop in front of Tzuyu.

“And that’s my problem how?” Tzuyu asks, sighing internally because she can tell where this is going.

Chaeyoung drops to her knees in front of the younger girl dramatically, hands clasped above her head. “Please, Tzuyu, _please_ help me unpack.”

Tzuyu shoots a forlorn glance at the closed door to her own, immaculately organized room. This is what she gets for finishing early.

“Fine, get up,” she mutters, reaching for the box nearest to her. Chaeyoung beams toothily and begins explaining her system – or lack thereof, Tzuyu thinks – for unpacking, and Tzuyu can’t help but wonder at the series of events that led her to this moment, where she’s sitting on the floor of this apartment, unboxing things she’d never own, for this loud, fiery girl she never imagined she’d become so close with.

Tzuyu doesn’t believe in fate, but she believes that the choices one makes, each infinitesimally small, collect and combine to create outcomes that become, after a certain point, inevitable. Every instance in her life, then, is a product of those decisions, the end result of a confluence of wills, both within and beyond her control.

The chain of events that produced this situation began with two choices: one made by Chaeyoung to get hopelessly drunk on a Tuesday late last August and stumble into Tzuyu’s room, mistaking it for her own, and one by Tzuyu to, rather than kicking out the wasted stranger who’d barged into her room and tried to make out with her, give the older girl a glass of water and listen to her intoxicated ramblings about her parents until she passed out in Tzuyu’s bed.

Tzuyu hadn’t intended to become friends with her handsy neighbor, but after that incident, Chaeyoung started knocking on Tzuyu’s door nearly every day. The first time, she brought a bag of chips and an apology. The next, a bottle of wine and a movie, and soon, it became a routine. Tzuyu didn’t mind Chaeyoung’s company, and Chaeyoung didn’t seem to be bothered by Tzuyu’s reticence; the Korean girl was talkative enough for the both of them, filling silences with advice for navigating Seoul and crass humor and stories of her childhood.

“Are you still trying out for volleyball?” Chaeyoung asks, pulling Tzuyu back to the present. Tzuyu nods, and the older girl flashes her a grin. “What would your parents think?”

Tzuyu shrugs, folding a pair of ripped jeans that look like they’d fit a child and placing them beside her. “If my grades don’t suffer, they don’t have to know.”

Chaeyoung’s grin widens, and she heaves a sport bag onto her shoulder. “That’s the spirit.” She steps around the piles scattered across the floor to squat next to Tzuyu.

“I’m already late for tryouts, so I’m gonna head out, but I’m proud of you,” she says, bumping the other girl with her shoulder.

Tzuyu gazes around the disorganized room and glares at Chaeyoung, who grimaces apologetically and backs away. “I’m sorry, and I love you!” she chirps, darting forward to plant a sloppy kiss on Tzuyu’s cheek before dashing off.

Catching sight of Tzuyu wiping at her cheek with a scowl as the door closes behind her, Chaeyoung chuckles and makes a mental note to buy the girl a pastry on her way home. Chaeyoung has yet to be on the receiving end of Tzuyu’s wrath, but she knows better than to push her.

Despite the heat, a shiver makes its way down Chaeyoung’s spine as she runs toward campus. Two pastries.

Skidding around the corner, Chaeyoung reaches the field to see the soccer team on the far end, already warming up. On the near side, the cheerleading squad is wrapping up, ponytails flicking about and long legs gleaming in the sun. Chaeyoung slows unintentionally, eyes riveted on fluttering skirts and pretty smiles.

Her attention fully captured, she fails to notice the girl walking in the opposite direction until fingers grab her by the ear, effectively snapping her out of her daze. 

“Keep your eyes off my squad, Chaeyoung-ah,” Jihyo scolds teasingly, flicking the younger girl on the forehead with her other hand.

Blushing furiously, Chaeyoung whines and squirms out of Jihyo’s grip. “Sorry, mom,” she grumbles, sullenly rubbing at her tender ear. Casting a final (brief, lest Jihyo reprimand her again) glance at the cheerleaders, her brow furrows. “Why aren’t you at practice?”

“I was, but I have a meeting to get to.” Jihyo frowns and looks down at her watch. “Aren’t you late for tryouts?”

Chaeyoung nods defeatedly, and Jihyo gives her an affectionate pat on the cheek. “Go on then. You don’t want to be any later.”

“Yes, God-Jihyo,” Chaeyoung says with a mock salute and runs off.

“Good luck!” Jihyo calls after her. Then, as an afterthought, she adds, “And control that lust, Son Chaeyoung!”

Without looking back, the younger girl gives her a thumbs up, and Jihyo shakes her head in resignation and keeps walking. Bumping into Chaeyoung reminded Jihyo that she’s been meaning to drop by the Nursery, as Nayeon has taken to calling the younger girls’ apartment.

As she crosses the quad, she pulls her out phone to check her schedule, letting out a sigh at the colored blocks crowding the display. Class hasn’t even begun, and she’s already overbooked, as always. She’ll drop by before dinner, Jihyo decides, after her Political Society meeting.

Tucking her phone back into her bag, she enters the student center and finds her way to the meeting room. According to her watch, it’s still six minutes to two. Jihyo is never late.

She takes a second to fix her bangs, then opens the door and steps inside, smiling broadly at her fellow Model UN board members, who greet her before returning to their pre-meeting chatter.

“I brought you coffee,” Mina says as Jihyo drops into the empty seat beside her.

“Thank god, you’re the best Minari,” Jihyo exhales gratefully, reaching for the cup and taking a long sip. “You becoming a barista was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Mina chuckles. “What about Daniel?”

“Way below free coffee,” Jihyo states seriously, and Mina gives her shoulder a playful push.

They’re interrupted by the sound of the door closing, signaling the arrival of Kim Namjoon, a senior at Hongik and the Model UN Secretary General. Silver-haired and 181cm tall, he cuts an imposing figure, but Jihyo knows he’s actually a big softie, as evidenced by the box of donuts he sets on the table before addressing the room.

“I hope everyone’s ready for a great year,” he proclaims, pulling a stack of paper plates from his bag and sitting down. “Mina, I know you have to head out soon, so why don’t you start things off.”

Mina nods, launching into a brief recap of the previous year’s activities, while Jihyo reaches for a donut. When Mina joined Model UN last winter, Jihyo was a little surprised; demure and prone to stage-fright, the Japanese girl didn’t seem like the type to enjoy an activity that requires extensive, frequently combative public speaking.

As Jihyo soon discovered, however, what Mina lacks in forcefulness, she makes up for in cogency. While never the loudest voice in the room, Mina is often the most persuasive, and she excelled as a delegate. At conferences, she assumes the same role that she holds in their group: the one of mediator, juggling strong personalities and creating compromise.

Jihyo finishes her donut just as Mina finishes her report. “Great, now let’s talk about the club fair next week. Hit me with your strategies for luring in new talent,” Namjoon prompts, clapping his hands together. “Mina, unless you have any ideas you want to pitch, you’re free to dip.”

Mina shakes her head and stands, giving a small bow before making her way out of the room. As the door closes behind her, she can hear Jihyo excitedly suggesting something involving karaoke and fog machines, and she winces, imagining the lively older girl with a microphone.

She heads down to the basement of the student center, her excitement building. Mina enjoys Model UN and working at Grounds, but she loves Games Club.

Pushing open the doors to the Rec Room, she’s met with the sound of whirring computers, game consoles, and even a couple old, arcade-style machines nestled into the corner of the room.

A familiar figure hunches over one such machine, furiously jiggling the plastic joystick, and Mina makes her way across the room to watch as Jisoo navigates a little yellow circle around a blinking labyrinth.

“Ah, Blinky you bitch,” Jisoo exclaims as her character is overtaken by ghosts, a mocking chime ringing from the Pac-Man machine. Looking up, she rolls her eyes at Mina. “This game is rigged, I swear.”

Mina shrugs and points to the screen, now displaying the top scores. All five have Mina’s initials. “I don’t know, I think it works just fine.”

Jisoo scowls and flops down onto a beanbag in the center of the room. “There’s a fine line between pride and arrogance, Mina-yah.”

Mina laughs and settles down next to the older girl. She and Jisoo joined Games Club when they were freshmen, both excited to have found a club to indulge their nerdier side and a friend to join it with. Back then, the club was smaller, consisting mainly of guys with acne who looked at Mina and Jisoo like they’d stepped out of a magazine.

Jisoo yawns loudly and stretches her legs out. “I need to go to the broadcasting station soon. I have Kim Bops at three,” she says, heaving herself up from the beanbag. Watching the older girl reach for her backpack, Mina thinks that for someone so presumably lazy, Jisoo is rather busy most of the time.

“Jihyo’s making dinner tonight,” Mina reminds her.

Jisoo pulls a face. “Right, so I’ll grab takeout on the way home.”

“Stop, she told me she spent the summer improving her cooking,” Mina admonishes, but Jisoo is unconvinced. Seeing the older girl’s wary expression, Mina continues, “She also said she’s stopping by the Nursery first, so she’ll probably bring Chaeyoung and Tzuyu.”

“Maybe she’ll make something edible for the babies then,” Jisoo grumbles, to which the younger girl just giggles. “As soon as I see things going south, I’m ordering delivery though.”

Hiking her backpack up, Jisoo gives Mina a wave, then heads out of the Rec Room and down the hall to the broadcasting station.

It was actually Nayeon’s idea for Jisoo to host a radio show; halfway through freshman year, the older girl decided that Jisoo had a ‘great voice for radio’ and showed up at her door with the application paperwork already filled out.

Never one to shy away from the spotlight, Jisoo decided on a name for the segment (“Kim Bops, like _kimbap_ , get it?” “As your friend, I beg you not to name it that.”) and began broadcasting the very next week. Every Sunday since then, she comes down to the station to play music and review games for the campus community. Sometimes she even hosts guests, again at the suggestion of Nayeon, her first guest, who, for obvious reasons, has never been invited back.

She gets to the studio in time to catch the tail end of the broadcast before hers, and she’s surprised to see a lone, startlingly pale girl instead of the goofy male duo that usually precedes her show. Jisoo waits in the sound booth and watches the girl wrap up through the glass pane.

“Thanks for tuning in, lovely listeners.” The girl pauses and runs a hand through her platinum-blonde hair. “I hope I didn’t bore you guys too much on my own, and if I did, be sure to come back next week to meet the Squirrel, my bright, bubbly, better half. Until now, it’s been Tofu with Sprite Radio.”

The on-air sign flickers off, and the blonde girl pulls off her headphones and leans back in her seat. Stepping into the recording room, Jisoo claps slowly, drawing the other girl’s attention.

“That was good,” Jisoo commends her, causing the pale girl’s eyes to widen.

“You’re Jisoo,” the girl says, standing up and giving a small bow. “I listen to Kim Bops every week. It’s part of why I wanted to start my own show. I’m Kim Dahyun.” She thrusts out her hand, pale cheeks slightly pink.

Flattered, Jisoo takes the other girl’s hand and gives it a shake. “Nice to meet you, Dahyun. I’ll be sure to listen to your show next week.”

Dahyun nods vigorously before exiting the studio, leaving Jisoo to slide into her seat and put on her headset. Leaning forward, she waits for the on-air sign to flash on. Then, she takes a breath and kicks off her broadcast,

“ _Nyongan_ , it’s DJ Chu. Welcome back, everybody.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope all those perspective shifts weren't too jarring. these first two chapters are mainly introducing the group dynamics of the story, since it's a little complicated. i wanted to do both groups at once, but it would've been way too long, so i split it into two chapters. 
> 
> this is primarily a satzu story with a lot of jenlisa and eventual 2yeon michaeng sides, but it's also about the friendships between the groups and their college lives. it'll include red velvet, bts, and got7 members as side characters, but mostly just as fillers. their ages are slightly adjusted so they can all be around the same age, but the age order in the groups is the same. 
> 
> additional notes:  
> takes place in seoul, but modeled more like american university  
> i know hongik is co-ed, but for the purposes of this story it’s all boys  
> if it's confusing re: who's friends w who, drop me a comment and i can clarify


	2. Triple A

_August 18, 2019_

Dahyun stands in the sound booth for a moment, a little flustered after meeting Jisoo, the reigning campus radio queen. Before coming to Ewha, Dahyun didn’t have any interest in video games, but after listening to Jisoo talk about them for a year, she’s started playing a few, and she’s even thinking of joining Games Club next week.

The vibration of her phone in her back pocket reminds Dahyun that she has things to do other than standing here staring at her friend crush. Reluctantly, she leaves the recording studio, her backpack and keyboard slung over her shoulders. As she makes her way out of the student center, she pulls out her phone to see a message from her flighty best friend, Minatozaki Sana.

 **From: Squirrel** – _I listened to the end of the broadcast after practice. So good!! I’m sorry I missed the first one. I have a present for you from Osaka to make up for it!_

Dahyun chuckles at the message, firing off a quick response before slipping her phone back into her pocket. When Sana frantically texted her earlier today saying she couldn’t make it to the broadcast for some unspecified reason, Dahyun had suspected that the Japanese girl was occupied with one of her hook-ups.

Though they all call Sana a squirrel for a multitude of reasons – her short attention span, her jumpiness, her relentless, shameless _aegyo_ , to name a few – Dahyun sometimes thinks the older girl is more like a reptile, constantly searching for a warm body to lie under. She wouldn’t put it past Sana to already be up to her usual… activities, so to speak.

Reaching her friends’ apartment building, Dahyun double-checks the address, then enters the door code and lets herself in. Pushing open the apartment door, propped open by a sneaker, she’s greeted by an artfully decorated living room. Prints of photographs line the walls, and a cozy-looking couch sits in the corner, making space for the chairs and microphone stand arranged in the center of the room.

“Hello?” she calls into the empty living room, setting her backpack and keyboard down on the floor.

“You’re early,” a voice calls from her left, and she turns to see a cheerful brunette in sweatpants coming out of what Dahyun assumes is her bedroom. She wraps Dahyun in a quick hug before excitedly pushing a notebook into the pale girl’s hands. “I have a ton of ideas for us this year.”

Rose Park, who is now flitting about the apartment laying out cups of water, was Dahyun’s first friend at university. They met in introductory music theory class, during which the younger girl told Dahyun about her dream of starting a band. Upon discovering that Dahyun is a bit of piano prodigy, Rose invited her to join, and Dahyun agreed, on the condition that she get to rap every now and then.

Thus began Honey, their ragtag, genre-less garage band, named by Rose after her favorite coffee condiment. Fittingly, their first performances were held at nearby cafés, playing on weekday nights for tired strangers and whichever of their friends could make it.

“How was your summer?” Rose asks while Dahyun sets up her keyboard. She presses a key, making sure the sound is working properly, before settling down on the couch next to the Australian girl.

“Great, actually. You know how I signed up to be a counselor at that music camp in Daegu?” Rose nods, recalling the older girl’s enthusiasm for anything involving music and playing with children. “Well, it was a blast, and get this: they _paid_ me. Can you believe that?”

Rose can, in fact, believe that, considering it would’ve been illegal for them not to have paid Dahyun, but she shakes her head anyway, not wanting to rain on the other girl’s parade. Sometimes she’s still surprised that the energetic, pint-sized Korean girl is nearly a year older than her, having repeated the sixth grade due to an incident that she adamantly refuses to discuss.

“These lyrics are great,” Dahyun says, flipping through Rose’s notebook. She pauses at a page covered with crossed-out, rewritten lines, then looks up at Rose with comically wide eyes. “You wrote me a rap?”

Rose flushes and snatches back the notebook. “It’s terrible, I know, but it’s mostly filler for you to add your own parts–”

She’s cut off by the older girl leaping up and grabbing the microphone, spitting Rose’s unconfidently-written bars with great gusto.

“Whatever you gave Tofu, I want some too.” Dahyun stops mid-verse, head swiveling to the doorway, where Park Sooyoung, Honey’s background vocalist and self-appointed manager, leans against the threshold, arms folded across her chest.

“Joy!” Dahyun whoops, tossing the microphone onto the couch before bouncing over to give the dark-haired girl a hug. Sooyoung pats Dahyun’s head affectionately.

“You’ve gotten shorter,” she observes, earning a scowl from the blonde, who huffs and returns to the couch. “Look who I found loitering outside,” Sooyoung continues, stepping aside to reveal Jeon Jungkook, their fourth and final bandmate, with an electronic drum kit and a grumpy frown.

“I wasn’t loitering, I just forgot the door code,” he protests, to which Sooyoung just laughs and drags him into the apartment, kicking Rose’s sneaker out of the threshold and closing the door behind her.

“And you were too shy to ask?” Dahyun teases, making Jungkook’s frown deepen.

Rose steps in before their bickering can escalate, helping Jungkook hook up his drum set to her speakers. In the corner, Dahyun and Sooyoung squabble over who gets to rap in their next song.

This is how all their practices start, honestly, but chaotic as it is, Rose loves Honey. She’s hoping to expand to more venues this year, provided they don’t kill each other first.

A percussive cacophony blasts through the apartment as Dahyun and Sooyoung, each armed with a drumstick, bang arrhythmically at the drum kit while a crestfallen Jungkook watches from the floor, having been ousted from his chair.

“Sounds great guys, keep it up,” a new voice cuts across the din, making the rowdy duo freeze, drumsticks aloft. Long hair swept into a ponytail, Lalisa Manoban stands by the door to their apartment looking deeply amused.

From the corner of her eye, Rose sees Jungkook scramble to his feet and snatch his drumsticks off the floor, where they’d been dropped by the older girls in their rush to tackle Rose’s roommate into a hug. “Are you going to practice?” Rose asks, somewhat superfluously given Lisa’s outfit of spandex and a faded band T-shirt.

Lisa nods and hoists her workout bag higher on her shoulder. Sooyoung takes this as an opportunity to pinch the Thai girl’s toned biceps, and Dahyun pretends to swoon. “Ace Lisa, as usual, on and off the court,” the pale girl declares, making Lisa roll her eyes.

It’s true that Lisa’s earned herself a reputation as a bit of a player. And not without reason, Rose knows. Equal parts cute and charming, Lisa just has a way with people. They quite literally fall into her bed. And last year, on more than one occasion, Rose found herself in the hallway outside their shared room, waiting awkwardly for Lisa to, well, _finish_.

But at the same time, Lisa’s track record belies the fact that she is – maybe unexpectedly, to her string of brokenhearted lovers – a hopeless romantic, something Rose has seen Lisa cry over too many Disney movies not to know.

She glances over at the younger girl, currently staggering under the combined weight of Dahyun and Sooyoung clinging onto her arms. Lisa would deny this assessment, of course, with her typical bravado, but it’s quite obvious to anyone with eyes that the Thai girl is actually a big marshmallow.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you guys from…whatever it is you were doing, so I’m off to practice,” Lisa says, extricating herself from Dahyun and Sooyoung’s grip. Catching Jungkook’s eye, she gives him a wave, but he just nods jerkily in response, gaze flicking off to the side.

Lisa has always gotten the impression that the drummer doesn’t like her very much, which she takes quite personally. She is, after all, Honey’s biggest fan, having been to every single one of their shows (as she reminds Rose every time she needs the Australian girl to do something for her).

Shrugging off the frosty interaction, Lisa slides into her sneakers and opens the apartment door. “By the way, your show was really funny,” she tells Dahyun, who beams back at her, before stepping through the doorway. From the apologetic babbling that begins as the door closes behind her, she can tell that Rose forgot to mention it, and she chuckles to herself as she heads out onto the sidewalk.

Absentminded as she may be, Rose is Lisa’s favorite person in the world. When they first met, Lisa was pretty sure the Australian girl was her soulmate. In Rose, she’d found someone who saw straight through her bullshit, who laughed at the same childish jokes she did, who told her it’s okay to be homesick, to let her guard down. She’d found someone who understood her better than anyone ever had before.

For that reason, within a few hours of their first meeting, Lisa knew that she wanted the older girl by her side for the rest of her life. Upon discovering, shortly afterward, that Rose was possibly the straightest person she’d ever met, Lisa settled for being best friends.

After a relatively smooth (Lisa thinks it was great, Rose argues there could’ve been fewer surprise overnight guests) year as roommates, living together for their sophomore year was a no-brainer. They moved into their apartment about a week ago – the Studio, they’re calling it, because Rose has her band practices and Lisa has her photographs. She’s even converted a storage closet into a tiny dark room for her film camera. 

Lisa gets to the gym just before five, not late for practice, but not early either. Girls are already scattered around the gym in pairs, bumping balls back and forth, while music blares from a speaker near the net. Among the girls warming up, there are a few faces Lisa doesn’t recognize, and as she puts on her kneepads and court shoes, her eyes rove appraisingly over the newcomers, sizing them up and seeing if any show potential.

“You can’t hook up with any of them. Some of them will end up on the team.” Hirai Momo, co-captain of the volleyball team, materializes by Lisa’s side.

“I wasn’t checking them out,” Lisa says indignantly, only to realize, upon meeting Momo’s level gaze, that the Japanese girl wasn’t making fun of her; she genuinely thinks that if she doesn’t tell Lisa not to sleep with these people, the younger girl will.

The worst part is, she’s probably right. “Okay, I won't,” she promises, receiving an affirming nod from the older girl. Momo returns her attention to the court, and Lisa stares at her for a beat longer before doing the same. 

Last fall, when Lisa was the only freshman to make the varsity volleyball team, it was Momo who took it upon herself to ensure that the Thai girl felt welcome. Maybe she recognized the lost, nervous look in Lisa’s eyes, saw herself in this fellow foreigner, struggling to assemble sentences from a stunted, rudimentary lexicon. Or maybe she was just being nice.

Whatever the motivation, a few weeks into the season, Momo began inviting Lisa to hang out after practice, to have lunch with the Japanese girl’s friends, to feel like she belonged somewhere in this new and alien place thousands of kilometers from home. Momo probably didn’t even recognize what her offer of friendship meant to Lisa, how it soothed some quiet, homesick ache deep inside the younger girl.

“I like that one,” Momo comments, redirecting Lisa’s wandering thoughts to the court, or more specifically, to the girl she’s pointing at.

And suddenly, Lisa regrets agreeing not to pursue any of the girls trying out for the team because _damn_ the tall, expressionless girl standing by the net has got to be the most attractive person she’s ever seen. There’s something vaguely familiar about her, but Lisa’s fairly certain she’d remember if she’d seen that face before.

Or that body. Eyes trailing down the other girl’s long, toned legs, Lisa distractedly mumbles, “Yeah, me too.”

Momo frowns, waving a hand in front of Lisa’s face to recapture her attention. “Again, no. To all of them. Especially Miss Ewha over there. I want her on the team.”

The pieces click together in Lisa’s brain. “That’s where I’ve seen her,” she says, snapping her fingers.

Every spring, in a bizarre, old-fashioned ritual reminiscent of 90’s high school movies, the combined student bodies of Ewha and Hongik come together to elect two freshmen, deemed the most beautiful faces on campus, to be crowned Miss Ewha and Mr. Hongik. In addition to having to dance together at Spring Fling, their pictures get framed and placed on a mantle in the student center until they’re replaced the following spring.

In Lisa’s opinion, the whole affair is absurd. The act of selecting the two best-looking people in the freshman class is ridiculous in and of itself, and the exhibition of their photos is downright inhumane. It’s as if the school wants to remind them, constantly, that each and every one of them is uglier than the winners.

But looking at the girl now – Chou Tzuyu, if she’s remembering correctly – Lisa thinks some people truly do deserve awards just for being pretty.

“So she’s a sophomore,” she ponders, watching Tzuyu smoothly return a pass to the girl across from her. “I wonder why she didn’t try out last year.”

Momo shrugs, gathering her dark, straight hair into a ponytail. “Don’t know, but I’m glad she’s here. We need height, and she’s gotta be at least 170.”

Noticing that the music has stopped, Momo looks toward the net to see Kang Seulgi, her co-captain, waving her over with a wry grin. “Hirai, your useless wife is calling,” she laughs, holding up Momo’s phone.

Choosing to ignore the dig, Momo jogs over to take her phone from the older girl. Without thinking, she answers the call and lifts the phone to her ear.

Only, instead of coming out of the phone speaker, a panicked, high-pitched scream erupts from the speaker system at her feet. Every head in the gym whips around to stare at Momo, frantically jabbing at her screen in an attempt to disconnect from the speaker.

“What did you do this time?” she asks wearily, once she’s gotten the phone under control. Next to her, Seulgi cackles with Lisa, and Momo swats at them aggrievedly.

“Momo, thank god you answered, something is on fire!” Sana shrieks through the line, loud enough for Lisa and Seulgi to hear, to their great amusement.

Momo sighs, bringing a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Practice is about to start,” she says weakly, then immediately yanks the phone away from her ear as another screech bursts from the other end of the call.

“Did you hear me, Momo? I said there’s a _fire_!”

“Alright, fine, I’m on my way,” Momo groans, hanging up the call and glaring at the pair by her side, doubled over with laughter. “I’ll be right back.”

“No, yeah, go save your apartment,” Seulgi wheezes, waving her off. “And make sure to give Sana a kiss from me.”

Momo pauses in the middle of changing into her sneakers. “You do know I have a boyfriend, right?”

“Oh yes, I know Heechul,” Seulgi says, having regained some composure. She wrinkles her nose. “You’d be better off with Sana, I think.”

“Why doesn’t anyone like Heechul?” Momo whines, dropping her shoe to cross her arms over her chest. “He’s nice and funny and buys me food–”

“Hey, Momo, isn’t your apartment on fire?” Lisa cuts in dryly, gaze flicking down meaningfully to Momo’s abandoned shoe, then to the door.

“Right, yes,” Momo huffs, stomping into her sneaker without bothering to untie the laces. “Again.”

Grabbing her phone and keys, she flounces out of the gym, escorted by the fading sound of Lisa and Seulgi’s cackling. “I can’t believe this isn’t the first time,” she hears Lisa snicker.

“I can’t believe Sana said the apartment’s on fire and Momo said, ‘Practice is about to start.’”

And then Momo is running, gym door swinging shut behind her, as she begins to register the potential urgency of the situation. It’s not like this is the first time Sana’s set something on fire, but every time the clumsy blonde causes mayhem, she somehow seems to one-up herself, with each accident causing more trouble than the last.

When they were kids, back in Osaka, Sana’s mishaps were always minor: she’d forget her lunch, walk into streetlamps, trip over her own feet. She was, at worst, a little scatterbrained, but never destructive. Since getting to university, though, Sana has become a walking disaster. Practically every week, the younger girl manages to find a fun new way to break something, cause a scene, trigger a lab lockdown by spilling toxic chemicals – it’s almost as if Sana is bored, creating problems just for the thrill of it.

An image of her entire apartment burning down, her clothes and pictures and appliances (and oh my god, her _refrigerator_ ) reduced to ashes, flashes into Momo’s mind. She runs a little faster.

Reaching her building, Momo barrels through the entryway and up the stairs, only to stop, winded, outside her apartment. Through the door, she can hear Sana screaming, and it occurs to her to check the doorknob – cool to the touch, thankfully – on the off chance that the whole apartment is actually on fire, because she’s not about to walk into an inferno just to save her inept roommate. Momo loves Sana, but Momo loves Momo more. 

After bracing herself for whatever fresh hell lies on the other side, Momo opens her apartment door and is met with the sight of a flushed, panic-stricken Sana furiously waving a dishcloth at their flaming toaster. While Momo watches, the towel catches on fire as well, and Sana yelps, dropping it in the sink.

“You know, it’s a wonder you’ve even survived this long,” Momo comments, stepping gingerly into her apartment and closing the door behind her.

At the sound of her voice, Sana’s head pivots sharply to the doorway, and she throws Momo a murderous glare. “Can you please do something about this instead of just standing there?” the blonde demands.

Momo takes a half-step forward, eyeing the twin flames rising angrily from the toaster slots. “How did this even happen?”

“I don’t know,” Sana wails, casting about for something else to flap ineffectually at the ruined toaster. “I was making myself dinner–”

“Mistake number one,” Momo breaks in, drawing another menacing look from Sana.

“Does this look like the time for jokes, Momo?”

Before Momo can say, yes, this moment where Sana is desperately flailing a Barbie-themed oven mitt at what used to be their toaster does, in fact, seem like a great opportunity to make a joke, they’re interrupted by a loud crash as Yoo Jeongyeon, eyes wide and chest heaving, barges into their apartment wielding a fire extinguisher.

Seeing the toaster, Jeongyeon stops short and stares at Sana in disbelief. “ _That’s_ the fire? You made it sound like the whole place was burning down.”

“Why am I the only one concerned about this?” Sana cries, pointing at the very much still-on-fire toaster.

In lieu of a response, Jeongyeon sets down the extinguisher, fills a glass with water, unplugs the toaster, and empties the cup over the flames, effectively dousing the fire. “You’re welcome,” she grouses, turning to glare at a now-sheepish Sana.

Momo, who never even bothered to enter the kitchen, Sana notices with some affront, snorts at the anticlimactic resolution. “Glad I got to witness you screaming at our toaster, but I need to go back to tryouts. Try not to start any more fires while I’m gone,” she teases, already halfway out the door.

“Just so you know, you were no help at all,” Sana calls after Momo, who shoots her a finger heart before disappearing from the doorway.

And even though Momo truly ran here just to stand there and laugh at her, Sana can’t help the fond smile that creeps over face. Because Momo ran here. Because Momo always runs to Sana.

Ever since that first day, when Sana walked into her elementary school classroom and sat next to the girl with the big eyes and the bangs and the pink, sparkly backpack, Momo has been looking out for her. Even during those four years they were apart, when Momo moved to Kyoto for high school and Sana came to Seoul alone, Momo would call Sana on the weekends and tell her what the weather was like in Kyoto that day, how the new soba restaurant near her school had the best ice cream, what the cherry blossoms looked like that year.

Sana wouldn’t have to say anything, wouldn’t have to tell Momo that she was so homesick she ate takoyaki from a vending machine. Momo would just know. She’d catch something in Sana’s voice, hear the rusty, blunt edges of her neglected Japanese, and automatically launch into a thorough comparison of every baby octopus street-vendor in the Kansai region.

Then, through a stroke of fate, they both ended up at Ewha, and suddenly Sana didn’t have to miss Japan anymore. She had a piece of home right here, in Seoul, with her. And everything – being a thousand kilometers from Osaka, working twenty hours a week just to pay her rent, getting an entire degree in her second language – got so much easier. So Momo can make fun of Sana as much as she wants, can call her incompetent a thousand times and laugh at her when she sets their toaster on fire, because at the end of the day, Momo is here. And that’s all Sana needs.

A disgruntled cough grabs her attention, and Sana remembers with a start that Jeongyeon is still here in her apartment, silently seething at her.

“I’m so sorry for making you come here for that,” she apologizes, gesturing at the scorched remains of their toaster. Jeongyeon doesn’t respond, so Sana weakly offers, “I can make you something to eat?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Jeongyeon promptly refuses, glancing at the blackened toaster. Sana pouts, but Jeongyeon is already on her way out of the apartment. “I have a meeting soon anyway,” the older girl says, opening the door.

“Don’t forget your fire extinguisher,” Sana says helpfully.

Jeongyeon pauses in the doorway, turning to look at the extinguisher on the floor, then at Sana in the kitchen. “I think I’ll leave that here,” she says flatly and, ignoring Sana’s indignant expression, walks out of the Japanese girls’ apartment, closing the door behind her.

It’s early evening, still light out but no longer uncomfortably hot, as Jeongyeon makes her way toward campus. Sana’s incident reminded Jeongyeon of the time she first met the Japanese girls, under similar circumstances, nearly two years ago.

The semester had barely started. Jeongyeon was on the brink of sleep, having finally finished her homework, when she was roused by the earsplitting screech of the fire alarm. Per protocol, she shuffled out into the courtyard, half-asleep and half-dressed, to stand with the rest of her grumpy, confused dormmates. Seeing someone she recognized, a foreign student with a blunt hime cut who had been one of the few freshman on campus early for preseason, she drifted over to ask the other girl what was going on. “It was Sana,” the girl responded tiredly.

Before Jeongyeon could ask what a Sana was, her question was answered by the appearance of a disheveled blonde girl, on the verge of tears, at the dark-haired girl’s side. “Momo, I didn’t mean to,” the blonde spluttered, tucking herself into the other girl’s arms.

“I know,” the dark-haired girl, Momo, soothed. Turning to Jeongyeon, she introduced, “I’m Momo, and this is Sana, the one who set the dorm on fire trying to make grilled cheese.”

And that was all it took. Outside of the soccer team, Jeongyeon hadn’t made any friends yet, and once she met Momo and Sana, she didn’t really need to make any more. Between helping Momo keep Sana alive (“How did you survive here alone for four years?” “I have the fire department on speed dial.”) and helping Sana teach Momo Korean (“For the last time, it’s _earth_ pork, not hook pork.”*), Jeongyeon had her hands full for all of freshman year.

Then last fall, Momo started bringing a freshman from the volleyball team to hang out with them, and it was like dominos after that. Lisa showed up at their routine Thursday bar night with her roommate, a mild-mannered Australian girl named Rose, who surprised them all with her ability to shut Lisa up with a glance. Then Rose dragged them to a tiny café on a Tuesday night to watch her band play, and they met Dahyun, the dynamic prankster that Jeongyeon didn’t know she needed in her life until they conspired together to plant fake cockroaches in Momo’s bed.

And all of a sudden, Jeongyeon found herself the reluctant caretaker – or Daddy, as Sana calls her, to everyone’s great disgust – of this unruly, insubordinate group of foreigners and Dahyun. But for all Jeongyeon complains about her needy, troublesome children, she really wouldn’t have it any other way. Maybe because she’s only ever had older sisters and she likes the authority of being the oldest among her friends. Or maybe because it’s nice to be needed every now and then.

Either way, she’s hoping for fewer disasters this year, Jeongyeon thinks. They’re not off to a great start, though, she acknowledges with a sigh, climbing the stairs to the meeting rooms.

“You're late,” a dry voice reprimands when she walks into the room.

Jeongyeon gives Kim Jennie, the Design Club’s Fashion Director, a shrug and slumps down into her seat. “I had to put out a fire.”

“I hope you're being figurative, but knowing your friends, you’re not,” Jennie drawls, a smile ghosting across her lips.

Jeongyeon shakes her head wearily, pulling her computer out of her backpack. As the screen flickers to life, she sees the last website she had open and lets out a chuckle. “I saw something funny today,” she tells Jennie, swiveling her laptop to show the younger girl her browser, open to a quiz about Jennie’s friend group.

“Don’t remind me,” Jennie groans, rolling her eyes. When Jeongyeon sniggers, Jennie’s brow furrows. “Don’t laugh. I’m sure there’s one about your clique too.”

Jeongyeon frowns. “We’re not a clique, unlike you and your little mean bitch squad.”

At that, Jennie snorts with a unique combination of derision and genuine amusement, as only Kim Jennie can. “Triple A? You have a name; you’re a clique.” She inspects her nails with practiced disinterest. “At least we own up to it.”

Jeongyeon can’t argue with that, so with a resigned nod, she closes the browser and turns her computer back to herself. While she’d love to sit and argue about the many ways in which Sin City, Jennie’s seemingly hand-picked group of cold, unfairly attractive friends, differs from her own friend group, Jeongyeon concedes that her little family qualifies, by some definition, as a clique.

She was baffled, to say the least, when she heard from Sana last winter that their fellow students had taken to calling them Triple A. With some excitement, Sana told her the nickname comes from each of their friends falling into at least one of three categories: athletic, artistic, and attractive. As if that’s not ridiculous enough, supposedly the name also refers to some American company that jumpstarts cars stranded on highways, a reference to her friends’ generally helpful, amiable presence on campus.

In Jeongyeon’s opinion, playing sports or taking pictures doesn’t warrant a full classification as a clique. But aside from slightly better turnout at her soccer games, nothing really changed in her life, so she decided to just ignore the designation. In fact, unless she’s reminded of it, like now, she usually just forgets altogether that some small, likely very bored, faction of the campus calls them by anything other than their actual names.

“I think one of your friends, Son Chaeyoung, is trying out for soccer,” Jeongyeon speaks after a moment.

Jennie looks up at her with steely eyes. “You better be nice to her, Yoo Jeongyeon,” she says darkly. Without giving Jeongyeon a chance to respond, to say, of course she’ll be nice because she’s nice to everyone, unlike Jennie, the younger girl continues, “If I hear that you gave her shit, I’ll murder you in your sleep.”

And Jeongyeon can only nod, hands raised in submission and an amused grin spreading across her face. Because, as much as she hates to admit it, Jeongyeon harbors a real, albeit grudging, respect for Jennie. Apart from everything about them, they’re not so different. Like Jeongyeon, Jennie cares, deeply and truly, for her friends, would threaten someone’s life for them. In another life, maybe they’d even be friends, her and Kim Jennie, Triple A and Sin City.

Things just didn’t shake out that way, and instead, they live their lives parallel to one another. They intersect every now and then – in clubs, on sports teams, in passing glances and quiet acknowledgements of the other’s existence – but for the most part, they just run in different circles.

That’s just how university is, Jeongyeon thinks idly as the Design Club President stands to begin their meeting. You find your circles, pull them around yourself, and take comfort in the realization that, although there are thousands of people you could’ve been friends with, these are the ones you found. These are the ones that found you. And everything else, everyone else, becomes a backdrop over which you make your way through the world.

After all, everyone can’t be friends with everyone, Jeongyeon figures with a discreet glance at Jennie. No matter how many times, how many ways, big and small, your lives intersect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * the 흙 in 흙돼지 (jeju black pork) is pronounced 'heuk,' but momo pronounces it 훅 (hook)
> 
> btw, follow me on twitter (@aprilrcho) for updates if u want


	3. Nice to Meet You, I Guess

_August 25, 2019_

“Remind me why we do this when it’s like forty degrees out,” Jennie gripes, dragging a folding table into place on the grass. Shielding her eyes from the midday sun, she straightens up and surveys the main quad, across which hundreds of similar tables have been set up.

“Because it wouldn’t be the club fair without a little heatstroke,” Nayeon responds playfully, leaning forward to wipe a bead of moisture from Jennie’s temple. “Now stop sweating. We have a competition to win.”

Slapping Nayeon’s hand away, Jennie gives the older girl a pointed glare. “I wouldn’t be sweating so much if you would help me, instead of just watching while I do all the work.”

“But you’re doing so well on your own, and I don’t want to get in the way of that,” Nayeon encourages with smirk. Before Jennie can reach over the table to strangle her, Nayeon continues, “Anyway, we really want to win this year. The prize is a free weekend trip to Busan for the whole board. With plus ones.”

Jennie’s eyebrows rise. Every year, student council hosts a contest for the club fair, with a reward for the club with the most sign-ups. Usually, the prize is small and undesirable; Model UN won last fall, and Jihyo and Mina came home with hideous, baby pink Ewha sweatshirts. This year, though, it seems student council has changed its approach. By limiting the winners to the board, they can offer a much bigger prize, one that someone might actually want to win. Like a weekend getaway.

Jennie glances at the sign Nayeon made – ‘Investment Banking Club: because being poor is the worst’– and sighs. Maybe she can get people to sign up for Design Club.

Students begin to trickle onto the quad, navigating the labyrinth of pop-up booths and tables, and before long, the fair is packed. Fifteen minutes in, Nayeon gives up on Jennie, who’s too overheated to pretend she cares about winning the sign-up competition. Another five minutes later, Nayeon just starts writing names on the sign-up sheet herself (“What’s Mina going to do? Yell at me?”).

By the time Tzuyu shows up to take over for Jennie, Nayeon is all too willing to let the younger girl go. “Finally. You can go drive people away from Design Club instead now,” she tells Jennie, practically pushing her out from behind the table.

After flashing Tzuyu a rueful smile, a wordless apology for leaving her with Nayeon, Jennie weaves her way to the other side of the quad. There, she finds Jeongyeon deep in conversation with Park Jinyoung, the Design Club’s Magazine Editor.

“I’m just saying, it seems like a lot of trouble for a hook-up,” Jeongyeon is telling Jinyoung.

He shrugs. “She’s hot, and we’re friends. It’s nice.”

“Are you talking about Nayeon?” Jennie breaks in, startling them.

Jinyoung nods, gesturing at Jeongyeon. “I was telling Jeongyeon about our friends-with-benefits deal, and she was saying that she doesn’t see the appeal.”

“I agree,” Jennie responds, surprising Jeongyeon. “I mean, I love the bitch, but she’s the worst. Freshman year, she made a guy cry because he forgot to walk her back to the dorm.”

“I told you. She’s insane,” Jeongyeon maintains with an incredulous shake of her head. Jennie just chuckles, sliding around the table to take the older girl’s place. As Jeongyeon picks up her backpack, a long arm loops around her shoulders, and she turns to see Lisa, wearing jeans despite the heat.

“Where are you headed?” she asks cheerfully. Before Jeongyeon can even respond, Lisa holds up a hand. “One second.” Lifting her sunglasses to rest on top of her head, she steps past Jeongyeon to lean against the Design Club table. “Have we met?”

Jennie gives her a blank stare. “No.”

Undeterred, Lisa extends a hand to Jennie. “That’s a shame. I’m Lisa, Jeongyeon’s favorite friend.”

“That’s not even remotely true,” Jeongyeon objects, watching this exchange with her hands on her hips, but Lisa ignores her, arm still outstretched over the table.

Jennie gazes at it detachedly for a moment, then responds with a curt, “Kim Jennie.”

“That’s a great last name. Can I have it?” Lisa replies without missing a beat. On the sidelines, Jeongyeon’s mouth actually drops open at the younger girl’s shamelessness. Meanwhile, Jennie couldn’t look more uninterested if she tried. Still, Lisa persists, “We should get a drink sometime.”

At that, Jennie’s gaze flicks to Jeongyeon, who takes the hint and grabs Lisa by the elbow. “For so many reasons, we have to go now.”

Lisa chuckles and lets Jeongyeon drag her away, only turning back to call out, “See you around, Kim Jennie.” Then the cat-eyed girl is lost from view as she and Jeongyeon press farther into the crush of students swarming the club fair.

“I can’t believe you,” Jeongyeon sighs, releasing Lisa’s arm.

“I can’t believe _you_ ,” Lisa counters, eyes wide. “You’re friends with that girl and never introduced me?”

“First of all, we’re not friends,” Jeongyeon corrects. “And second, I didn’t introduce you because I knew that would happen.”

“Knew what would happen? Love at first sight?”

Jeongyeon gapes at her. “Are we talking about the same interaction? Because from where I was standing, it looked like you struck out hard. Like, didn’t even have a bat kind of strikeout.”

Lisa just grins and tips her sunglasses back over her eyes. “You gotta go to bat to hit a home run.” Jeongyeon pulls a face and keeps walking.

On one end of the quad, the school has set up a makeshift concession stand, complete with umbrellas and picnic tables. Lisa and Jeongyeon stop by to grab free popcorn and sit in the shade, killing time until Lisa’s shift at the Model UN booth. Rose joins them after a while, and she and Jeongyeon pester Lisa to join Arts Collective, their club and studio space.

Lisa really doesn’t have time for another extracurricular, especially since she’s been looking for a part-time job. She’s saving up for a new camera: a sleek, black Leica, digital this time. But she can only hold out against Rose’s pout for so long, and eventually she caves, giving Jeongyeon permission to write her name on the sign-up sheet before leaving for the Model UN table.

When Lisa reaches the booth, Mina, the Chief of Staff, greets her with a friendly smile. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says, casting a skittish glance at the bustle of people passing by. “I’m not great at talking to strangers.”

Lisa picks up the sign-up sheet and scans over it, letting out a low whistle. “You got this many sign-ups and you’re not even talking to them? Must be nice to be so pretty.”

“I see you haven’t changed,” Mina responds with a shy laugh, scooting over to make room for Lisa on her side of the table.

She met Lisa when the younger girl joined Model UN last fall. Mina had been standing up against the wall, slightly overwhelmed by the flood of new members milling about the room and unsure how to engage with them, but Lisa took all the work out of it for Mina. Immediately recognizing her as a fellow foreigner, Lisa drifted over and struck up a conversation, asking Mina about Japan, her family, and her dog, Ray.

Talking to Lisa was easy; the Thai girl never seemed to run out of things to say, could find common ground with anyone. During break periods at conferences, if Jihyo was busy and Mina was alone, tucked into a corner somewhere, Lisa would come find her. She’d plop down next to her, offering half a sandwich or a bag of chips, and Mina would feel a little more at ease, a little less lost amidst the swirl of unfamiliar faces.

She feels this way now, too, watching Lisa interact with students walking by their table. The younger girl is in her element, chatting about nothing with complete strangers and cajoling them into signing up for Model UN.

“Did you sign up for anything?” Mina asks the other girl during a lull.

“Not really,” Lisa shakes her head, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. “What I really need is to find a part-time job somewhere, but I don’t know anyone looking for a foreigner with zero work experience.”

Mina perks up. “I do!” Seeing Lisa’s look of surprise, she backtracks. “I mean, those aren’t exactly the criteria, but the café I work at, Grounds, is hiring, if you want to make coffee.”

Lisa beams at her. “That would be awesome.” Mina nods and tears off an unused corner of a sign-up sheet to write down the manager’s information. Tucking the scrap of paper in her pocket, Lisa looks back up at the older girl. “What about you? Have you signed up for anything?”

“I don’t know what to join,” Mina responds, shaking her head. She gazes out across the crowded maze of tables, nervously eyeing the mass of students packed into the fair, and Lisa hums in understanding. They fall back into silence, with Mina staring absently into the distance and Lisa deep in thought.

Suddenly, the younger girl lights up. “You should join International Students Association,” she tells Mina with a broad smile. “You’re international, and we’re all super friendly. My friend Momo should be working the booth right now. She’s Japanese too, and she’s great, so you can talk to her about it.”

Mina considers this for a moment before nodding in agreement. For the past two years, she’s only had Tzuyu to relate to her experience of living abroad, and it would be nice to meet some other foreigners.

Just as she’s contemplating whether she can convince Tzuyu to join with her, she catches sight of the Taiwanese girl being pulled toward the Model UN booth by an exasperated Chaeyoung. “Tzuyu won’t sign up for anything,” Chaeyoung whines, coming to a stop in front of their table. “I’ve been dragging her around since her IB shift ended.”

“I don’t want to,” Tzuyu grumbles, tugging her arm back from Chaeyoung’s grasp.

“Hey Tzuyu,” Lisa greets, receiving an acknowledging head tilt in response.

“How do you guys know each other?” Mina asks with some surprise, looking between the two.

“Tzuyu just joined the volleyball team,” Lisa explains. Turning to Chaeyoung, she reaches a hand across the table. “I’m Lisa, and you are?”

Chaeyoung pushes her hair back before shaking Lisa’s hand. “Chaeyoung. Nice to meet you.” The pair begin chatting, their conversation taking on a flirty undertone, and Mina stifles a giggle at the interaction between the biggest philanderers she knows.

“Let’s join the international club,” she suggests to Tzuyu, who glances off to the side in consideration. Encouraged by the lack of an immediate negative response, she presses on, “Lisa’s a member, and she says it’s fun. Plus, we can sign up together.” Mina gives her best puppy eyes, blinking pleadingly. She employs this tactic so rarely, often too embarrassed to try, but she knows Tzuyu would rather swallow nails than join a new club, so she even throws in a little pout.

After a moment, Tzuyu relents with a slight nod, and Mina claps her hands together delightedly. “My shift is over, so Tzuyu and I are going to sign up for International Students Association,” she tells Chaeyoung, whose head snaps up.

“How did you do that?” She fixes Tzuyu with an accusatory glare. “I swear, we walked to every booth, and she had no interest in anything.”

“She likes me better,” Mina says with a shrug, stepping out from behind the table to loop her arm through Tzuyu’s. Tzuyu just bobs her head in agreement, making Chaeyoung scowl before returning to her conversation. Mina chuckles and leads the younger girl away from the Model UN stall.

They reach a booth with an ISA sign draped over the front. A blonde speaks in rapid-fire Japanese to boy signing up, flirting, Mina guesses from the snatches of their exchange she overhears. When the boy leaves, a dopey grin stretching across his face, Mina steps forward. “Hi, I’m Mina. Are you Momo?” she asks timidly.

The blonde laughs, shaking her head good-naturedly. “No, I’m Sana. Momo left for her meat club.”

“Grill Club,” Rose corrects from her left, but Sana waves her away.

“Same thing.” She turns back to Mina with a pleasant smile. “Are you thinking of joining ISA?”

“We are,” Mina says, tugging the girl beside her forward. Sana’s eyes skid over, and she forgets what she was going to say next, forgets her own name, and just stares, mouth slightly ajar.

A breeze ripples across the quad, catching long strands of the girl’s hair and brushing them off her shoulders. Sana can't tell if she’s leaning forward or if her vision is narrowing, zeroing in on doe eyes and delicate lips. She’s never experienced an attraction like this, a pull in her chest as if a magnet were there, reaching for a negative charge.

“Um, yes, here’s the sign-up sheet,” Rose awkwardly interjects after a protracted pause, sliding a piece of paper across the table. Sana blinks disorientedly, drawing back from where she had, in fact, been leaning over the table. Mina stoops to write her information down while Sana tries, to no avail, to catch the other girl’s attention.

“Where are you guys from?” she asks, eyes still glued to the tall, expressionless girl (she’s not sure if she even _can_ look away; she hasn’t tried yet).

“Taiwan,” the dark-haired girl says flatly, taking the pen Mina hands her and quickly filling in the sheet. Despite the terseness of the response, Sana feels a little thrill at the sound of the other girl’s voice. In the back of her mind, she calculates how long it’s been since she last had sex – eight days, which is kind of a while for her – and wonders if that’s why she feels this way, why her body is reacting so eagerly to this brooding stranger. 

“I’m also from Japan,” Mina follows. This catches Sana’s attention, and she opens her mouth to respond, always excited to meet fellow Japanese students, but Mina is already being dragged away by the taller girl who, having finished signing up, appears to have no interest in chitchat. “It was nice meeting you,” Mina calls over her shoulder before the pair disappear from sight, swallowed into the crowd of students.

“I didn’t even get her name,” Sana murmurs with a forlorn glance at the sign-up sheet, where the Taiwanese girl left only her email. Rose pats her shoulder, half in pity and half in amusement.

“Well, she just signed up for our club, so I’m sure you’ll see her again.”

Sana tries to put the tall, stony girl out of her mind; these attractions tend to fade as soon as she lays eyes someone else that piques her interest. But throughout the rest of the club fair, she finds her eyes catching on long, dark hair and high cheekbones. She feels the almost imperceptible quickening of her heart, then the tiny, subtle disappointment of realizing it’s not her. Sana doesn’t mean to, but she knows this feeling, knows that she’s unconsciously looking for this girl in every person that passes by.

Later, after the fair and before dinner, when she’s at home waiting for Momo to finish her captains’ meeting, it occurs to Sana that part of the reason she’s been captivated this icy stranger is the excitement of the chase. Dahyun likes to joke that Sana has a new crush every week, and she’s not far off. Her infatuations are frequent, but fleeting; once satisfied, she moves on quickly, and she never falls in love.

This is less of a conscious choice than just a fact to her. Sana’s sure love exists, but for other people, for teenage romantics and notebook philosophers. She falls into lust, certainly, and feels maybe a tender affection for the people whose bedrooms she passes through, but she likes to be in control (emotionally, anyway), and love seems reckless and unnecessary. Besides, she can’t imagine anyone even holding her interest for long enough to get there.

So, as Momo returns and the two make their way across campus to Al’s, the retro diner that houses their weekly Triple A dinner tradition, Sana suspects that she’ll get over this girl as soon as she gets under her. There’s a nagging feeling in her chest, a muscle memory of the way her heart stuttered briefly before beating on, that disagrees with her, but she brushes it aside. She was beautiful and uninterested, and Sana likes a challenge. That’s all there is to it.

She and Momo push through the door five minutes past seven, not on time but not egregiously late, like they typically are. Picking their way across the diner, bathed in the purple glow cast by neon bars rimming the edges of the ceiling, they head to their usual booth, all the way at the back of the room. Rose and Dahyun already have milkshakes in front of them, and Jeongyeon and Lisa share a menu, debating the pros and cons of different kinds of burgers.

Momo slides in first, next to Jeongyeon, and immediately dives into the menu discussion, while Sana follows to sit at the edge of the booth, across from Dahyun. A few minutes later, after placing their order with the same friendly, middle-aged waitress who always works Sunday nights, Jeongyeon leans forward to ask for a rundown of their first week back.

This, too, is a tradition. Over weekly dinners, they check-in, talking about classes they’re taking and people they’ve met. This week, Dahyun tells them about joining Games Club and hosting her second solo radio show (“I’ve been busy!” “What kind of busy?” “The _real_ kind!”), and Jeongyeon talks about the photoshoot Design Club is organizing for their magazine.

When it’s Sana’s turn, she can’t resist bringing up her new crush, to a chorus of bored groans. “She was really pretty,” Rose adds helpfully, giving Sana an understanding nod. “Like _really_ pretty.”

“What’s her name?” Lisa asks, dipping a fry in Rose’s milkshake, making the older girl scrunch her nose in distaste.

Sana tells them, dejectedly, that she doesn’t know, and Dahyun asks for a picture instead. “She was there for five minutes. You think I took a picture?” Sana protests, scandalized. Five pairs of eyes stare back at her, unblinking. She huffs and pulls out her phone to show them the picture she secretly managed to snap, grumbling, “You’re all the worst.”

“Oh, that’s Tzuyu,” Momo identifies immediately, handing the phone to Jeongyeon. “She just joined the volleyball team. How can you not know who this is? She literally won an award for being attractive.” As Lisa, looking over Jeongyeon’s shoulder, nods in agreement, a flutter of excitement runs through Sana. She’s one step closer to her target, one move further in this game.

“Can you introduce me?” she entreats, fluttering her eyelashes at Momo, who snorts and takes another bite of her burger.

“Didn’t you say she signed up for our club? Introduce yourself.” Sana pouts as she sits back, but she admits that it’d be no fun if this girl – Tzuyu – just fell into her lap. It’s a new school year, and Sana’s looking forward to seeing how long this lasts, how long it’ll take her to get what she wants. Not long, she guesses, if past experience is anything to go by.

The conversation moves to their schedules for the semester, busier this year than ever before. Lisa has an interview for a barista job, and Sana plans on working at the library again. Rose and Dahyun have band rehearsal twice a week now, in anticipation of playing more shows, and the others have practice every day. After a lengthy discussion about the importance of Friday classes, they pick Thursday nights as a good time for a weekly bar night, something Jeongyeon and Dahyun have been pushing for since last year.

Then, a buzzing noise reverberates around the booth, and they all check their phones to see an email from student council announcing the winner of the club fair contest.

“International Students Association?” Nayeon reads with a tone of disbelief to the six girls sitting around her living room.

Every Sunday evening, they gather here in the Palace, the name Jisoo came up with for the outrageously expensive apartment shared by Nayeon and Jennie. Usually, they just unwind, drinking until Nayeon can pry gossip or personal information from them. They’d just arranged themselves with glasses of wine – save Mina, who drinks only on rare occasions – on the pristine, white couches when they got the email blast about the competition. Nayeon tosses her phone back down onto the coffee table in disgust. “Who’s even in that?”

“Tzuyu and I joined today,” Mina offers quietly, receiving an accusatory glare from Nayeon.

“Well, since none of you would let me sign you up for IB Club, you lost me a trip to Busan. I hope you're happy,” she grouses, taking a long swig from her cup.

“You signed them up anyway,” Tzuyu points out, staring unaffectedly back when Nayeon levels her glare on the younger girl instead. After a moment, Nayeon gives up and takes another sip of her wine, muttering about insubordination under her breath.

“Did anyone else join anything new?” Jihyo asks, refilling her glass and holding the bottle out.

“I joined this thing called Arts Collective,” Chaeyoung volunteers, sitting up from her position on the floor to take the bottle from Jihyo. “The soccer captain’s in it, so I’ll know someone, and I’m tired of just doing what my parents want.”

“Yoo Jeongyeon?” Nayeon asks, making no effort to mask her distaste. “I’m glad you’re finally doing something creative, but that girl is so obnoxious.”

“Funny, she said something similar about you,” Jennie chuckles.

Nayeon flips her hair over her shoulder. “She was talking about me? I thought I felt the shiver of my name coming out of some nobody’s mouth.” She sets her glass down on the table just in time for a throw pillow to smack her in the face, flung by a half-reclined, cackling Jisoo.

Before Nayeon can retaliate, Jihyo redirects them into a conversation about their first week of classes. Chaeyoung is, somehow, already behind in her anatomy class, while Tzuyu is two weeks ahead on the material for the statistics class she’s taking with Nayeon and Jennie. Jisoo and Chaeyoung again commiserate on hating their majors, computer science and pre-med, respectively, and Jihyo convinces Mina to swap into her political science class.

Nayeon suggests that they have dinner together during the week, also at the Palace (“Because honestly, I think spending too long in those holes you call apartments would give me hives.”), and they run through their weekly schedules. Model UN meets on Mondays, Games Club and ISA on Tuesdays, and IB on Thursdays, so eventually they settle on Wednesday evenings.

With that single order of business out of the way, they quickly descend back into chaos. Nayeon opens another bottle of wine and interrogates Jihyo about Daniel; Jisoo lectures Chaeyoung on the subtle differences between various kinds of chicken skewers, prompted by her entry into Grill Club; and Tzuyu huddles on a couch with Jennie and Mina, observing as the decibel level in the room steadily increases.

Two hours and four bottles of wine later, Tzuyu and Chaeyoung trek back to their apartment, sent home early by Jihyo, who insists that they shouldn’t be out past eleven on a school night. Chaeyoung grumbles about their curfew, swaying slightly on the sidewalk, and Tzuyu offers her an arm, steadying the shorter girl as they walk through the sticky night air.

To Tzuyu, a new school year means new coursework and new responsibilities. It always has. Her parents, Taiwanese conglomerate owners who spent more time mapping out her future than actually raising her, were only around enough during her childhood to impress upon her a single mantra: do not disappoint us. Tzuyu spent birthdays studying alone and holidays learning how to make dumplings from cookbooks. She learned to quantify happiness in test scores, in the relief of, momentarily, not being a disappointment.

But recently, thanks to friends unlike any she’s had before, the start of school also means joining the volleyball team and returning to a habit of getting tipsy on school nights. It means trying new things, deviating farther and farther from the narrow path her parents laid out for her.

And it means meeting new people, Tzuyu concedes as she and Chaeyoung wind their way up the stairs and into their apartment. While the older girl clunks about in the kitchen, assembling herself a midnight snack, Tzuyu washes up and slips into bed, a soft smile on her lips.

She’s not especially interested in making new friends, but nor was she last year when six of them barged into her life uninvited. Friends have always been more of a luxury than a necessity to her, and she shuts down around strangers, unsure what to say. But Jihyo and Nayeon (and even Mina) have been encouraging her to open up more, to at least entertain the notion of meeting people beyond their circle.

So maybe that’s why the last thing that flashes across Tzuyu’s mind before sleep overtakes her is blonde hair and bright, caramel-colored eyes.


	4. Chuseok

_September 10, 2019_

Tzuyu’s not entirely sure how it happened, but lately, her dinners have gotten a lot _livelier_. At the beginning of the semester, she’d head to the dining hall after volleyball ended. That hasn’t changed – she still finishes practice, takes a quick shower, and crosses campus to eat dinner in the school cafeteria.

What’s changed is who she eats with. She used to meet up with Chaeyoung, coming from soccer, and Nayeon and Jihyo, coming from cheer, on the steps in front of the dining hall just after five. They’d get a table for themselves, usually somewhere in the corner of the cafeteria so Nayeon could see, and provide commentary on, everyone who’d walk by.

But sports teams typically eat together, as Momo and Lisa coaxingly informed her a couple weeks ago, and though Tzuyu always managed to slip out of the gym before they could trap her into having dinner with them, Chaeyoung had other ideas. She and Jeongyeon, the soccer captain, hit it off immediately, which was surprising to no one that knows both of them.

What they didn’t expect, though, was for Chaeyoung to show up at the dining hall one day with Jeongyeon’s arm slung around her shoulder and pull the older girl – who looked just as confused by the move – to sit with her. Seeing Jeongyeon with them, Momo and Lisa didn’t hesitate to join, casually setting their trays down on the table as if the seven of them had always eaten together. Jihyo, friendly beyond the bounds of normal human behavior, was more than happy to expand their circle, and their blended dinners became routine.

So more often than not, Tzuyu eats dinner just as she is right now, sandwiched between Momo and Jihyo, listening to Nayeon and Jeongyeon trade barbs from opposite ends of the table. Today, they’re talking about their plans for Chuseok on Friday.

“You're going home?” Jeongyeon asks, words muffled through a mouthful full of rice, once Nayeon finishes telling them about going to see her family over the long weekend. “Is it hot down there?”

Nayeon rolls her eyes, tossing a grape into her mouth before leaning around Jihyo to give Jeongyeon an apathetic stare. “Because I’m from hell? So unoriginal, Yoo.”

“No, I meant down in whatever crypt you crawl back into at night to pretend to sleep.”

“It would be _cold_ then, obviously. What about you? Is it back to the countryside so you can bring technology to your village?”

“I’m from Suwon, you hag.”

“We have no plans,” Lisa interjects, quieting a grumbling Jeongyeon with a pat on the shoulder. “Jeongyeon and Dahyun always go home, so the rest of us just kind of wander around campus, hoping a Korean person will see us and explain what Chuseok is.”

Tzuyu feels it happening, sees Chaeyoung light up across from her. She gets this sense of a choice being made, one that nudges her, almost unnoticeably, toward a slightly different outcome. Then Chaeyoung says, “You guys should tag along with us. Jennie and I are staying here and taking Mina and Tzuyu to the school festival.”

Lisa raises her eyebrows at Chaeyoung. “Kim Jennie?”

“Is there food?” Momo asks at the same time.

“Yes, to both,” Chaeyoung chuckles, and Momo and Lisa trade excited looks.

“Speaking of Kim Jennie,” Jeongyeon cuts in, turning to Lisa. “We have that photoshoot for Design Club on Thursday, but our photographer just dropped out. Can you do me a favor and fill in?”

Lisa barely has time to agree before Nayeon is complaining about the photoshoot happening during the long weekend, and the bickering picks back up (“Look at me. I was born to model.” “You know, I think I saw you in an ad for torture devices. Or maybe that was just a nightmare.” “You dream about me, Yoo?”). Caught in the crossfire, the rest of them continue to eat, trying to maintain side conversations and occasionally choking when a particularly scathing remark flies across the table.

Once she finishes eating, Tzuyu goes to bus her tray and returns to find Momo and Lisa waiting for her. “Ready to go?” Momo asks, holding Tzuyu’s bag out to her. Tzuyu nods and waves goodbye to her friends – Jihyo and Chaeyoung wave back; Nayeon is too preoccupied with telling Jeongyeon she dresses like someone who just fled North Korea to notice – then follows the older girls out of the dining hall.

This has also become part of Tzuyu’s routine. On Tuesdays, she walks with Momo and Lisa from dinner to the ISA meetings. They tend to separate once they get there; as Events Coordinator, Momo typically goes to the front to help run the meetings while Tzuyu almost always finds Mina sitting against the far wall. Sometimes Lisa joins them at the back of the room, usually with her roommate, Rose.

But through all these small inconsistencies, these minor variations from week to week, there is a single constant: every week, without fail, Tzuyu is accosted by one Minatozaki Sana.

When Momo warned her, early in the semester, that Sana comes on a little strong, Tzuyu didn’t realize she’d meant Sana would be coming onto _her_ strong. At first, she tried to avoid the older girl, but that soon proved an impossible task. Tirelessly persistent and seemingly devoid of any notion of boundaries, Sana began making a habit of plopping into the seat next to Tzuyu or, if that chair happened to be occupied, directly onto Tzuyu’s lap.

And truly, she’d be impressed by Sana’s brazenness, were she not so utterly astounded. As it is, Tzuyu can only stare in alarmed discomfort as Sana, all bubbly smiles and batting eyelashes, makes every effort to lure her into conversation.

“Did you eat dinner?” Sana asks, mercifully seated next to Tzuyu instead of on top of her today. Tzuyu glances at the clock on the wall, silently counting down the minutes until the meeting begins and Sana will be forced to leave her alone. Three to go. She gives a stiff nod in response, but as usual, Sana either can’t take a hint or is willfully ignoring Tzuyu’s attempts to deter her.

“Are you excited for your first volleyball game next week?” Sana tries again as she leans in, too close for Tzuyu’s liking, close enough for her perfume to wash over the younger girl. Orange blossoms and vanilla, Tzuyu notes absently. “I’ll be there cheering you on.”

Her hand comes up to rest on Tzuyu’s forearm, warm and insistent, and Tzuyu resists the urge to shake it off. Instead, she does what she’s been trying not to do for weeks and turns to glance at Sana, intending to ask her what, exactly, she wants from Tzuyu (though maybe the right question isn’t ‘what’ but ‘ _why_ ,’ since she’s pretty sure she knows what Sana wants). Only, when she does, she comes face to face with the blonde, centimeters away, gazing back at her with startling intensity.

It’s a little unsettling. Tzuyu doesn’t think she’s ever had anyone look at her the way Sana does, so unwavering and attentive. It’s the same way the Japanese girl looked at her that first time at the club fair – like she wants to tell Tzuyu something, something exciting and urgent. For a split second, Tzuyu wonders what it is.

Then the moment passes and the meeting’s starting and Sana’s bouncing off to the front of the room, leaving Tzuyu blinking at the now-vacant space beside her. A presentation about Chuseok begins, but Tzuyu’s only half-listening. She feels like Sana’s playing a game with her, one that she doesn’t know the rules of, one she never wanted to play in the first place. It’s disorienting.

Tzuyu remembers Momo assuring her, through laughter the day after Sana sat on her lap for the first time, that if she ignores Sana, the girl will eventually give up. So halfway through the meeting, when her eyes drift, mindlessly, to the blonde, who catches her gaze and throws back a wink, Tzuyu reminds herself that Sana can’t keep this up forever.

The thing is, it really feels like she can.

Jennie stands outside the design studio, tapping her foot impatiently. She wasn’t thrilled when Jeongyeon told her she’d asked Lisa to be their photographer, but she accepted it; it’s the first day of the long weekend and options are limited. But now, as she waits in the afternoon heat, her irritation growing by the second, she wishes she’d tried harder to find someone else.

Just as she’s pondering whether her phone camera quality is high enough for her to take the pictures herself, she spots Lisa walking up the path to the studio, a bag slung across her shoulders and a tripod in her hands. “There you are,” Jennie says exasperatedly, folding her arms across her chest. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

An unreadable expression flashes across Lisa’s face, so briefly that Jennie thinks she might’ve imagined it. Then it’s gone, replaced by a cocky grin. “Sorry I’m late. I hate to keep a pretty girl waiting.”

Jennie rolls her eyes and leads Lisa inside, explaining the photoshoot concept while they walk down the hall. It was Jinyoung’s idea to make the fall magazine issue Chuseok-themed, but he went home for the weekend, leaving Jennie to handle the execution.

It turned out well, she thinks as she and Lisa enter the white-walled room for the shoot. Dark wood furniture, gilded and painted with intricate folk designs, anchors the set of fall foliage and harvest vegetables, arranged by Park Jimin, the Art Director. Mina waves at them from the corner where she stands with the other models, all wearing modified hanboks designed by Jennie.

Lisa pauses in the doorway, taking in the set with wide eyes. Jennie lets a smile creep over her lips, oddly satisfied by the younger girl’s apparent admiration, but the feeling vanishes the moment Lisa opens her mouth. “I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with our house,” she says with a smirk. Jennie just sighs and shows Lisa where to set up her camera, wondering how she’ll survive the next few hours.

Once the photoshoot begins, though, Lisa becomes unexpectedly professional, directing the models and adjusting the lighting. It’s a side of her Jennie didn’t know existed, one that’s serious and methodical. Caught off-guard, Jennie finds herself watching Lisa more than the actual shoot, noticing the way the Thai girl’s brow furrows in concentration right before the shutter goes off or the subtle frown that tugs at the edges of her mouth when she’s unhappy with a shot.

There’s a short break for the models to change outfits, and Jennie steps outside to sit in the hallway. Lisa follows her out, sliding down to sit across from her in the narrow corridor, long legs outstretched between them. Jennie braces herself for the usual barrage of corny pick up lines, but it never comes. Instead, she looks up to find Lisa staring at her pensively.

“Why didn’t you go home?” Lisa’s voice is soft, but Jennie tenses nonetheless.

“None of your business,” she snaps, wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling them into her chest. Jennie sees Lisa flinch, gaze dropping down to the floor, and something uncomfortable and guilty settles in her stomach. A beat passes, heavy and silent. Then, eyes skating sideways, Jennie quietly adds, “It’s not very festive at home.”

She can feel Lisa looking at her again, perhaps waiting for her to elaborate, but she continues to stare down the sunlit hallway, watching dust swirl in the air. She doesn’t want to explain, wouldn’t even really know where to start. “Knock knock,” Lisa says suddenly.

Startled by the abrupt change in topic, Jennie responds reflexively, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, here to pick you up for our date.” Lisa delivers the line with her trademark grin, but her eyes are cautious, watching the older girl’s face intently. After a second of confused disgust, Jennie realizes that Lisa’s giving her an out, a diversion from this subject.

She takes it. Offering the younger girl a small, grateful smile, she replies, with less bite than usual, “I think you have the wrong door. I’m straight and not interested.”

“We’ll see about that,” Lisa chuckles, eyes sparkling playfully. “Want to get dinner tonight?”

“What part of ‘not interested’ did you not understand?”

“The ‘not’ part.”

Jennie snorts and stands up, done with this conversation. “I have plans tonight, so no to dinner.” Lisa shrugs unaffectedly, like she expected that answer, and stands to follow Jennie.

They walk back into the photoshoot room, and Lisa heads for her camera while Jennie hangs off to the side, watching the younger girl fiddle with the lens. She actually does have dinner plans; Mina invited her, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu over to the Arcade since Jisoo and Jihyo are gone. But she’s surprised by the part of her that’s a little disappointed, the part that said ‘maybe’ when Lisa asked.

A shutter goes off. Jennie turns to see Lisa in the middle of the room, grinning down at her camera display. She looks back up at the older girl and gives her a thumbs up, calling out, “You just looked too pretty not to take a picture.” And Jennie remembers why she wasn’t looking forward to this.

With a weary sigh, she motions for Lisa to continue the photoshoot. The second half goes by faster, in a blur of camera flashes and directives from Lisa. Then it’s over, and Jennie’s waiting for Mina to change while Lisa packs up her things. That same, strange little part of Jennie wants to go over to Lisa, to tell her she worked hard today, to thank her for not asking too many questions earlier. It’s weird, this urge to talk to the Thai girl again before she leaves.

But then Mina is back, telling Jennie she’s ready to go, and Lisa’s heading out with her camera around her neck, tossing Jennie another smile before she walks out the door. Watching Lisa leave, there’s a gentle pressure inside Jennie’s chest, one that feels a lot like relief, but also a little like regret. Jennie picks up her bag, follows Mina outside, and tries not to think about it too hard.

The next day is Chuseok, and campus is empty, save for the festival set up on the quad. It’s actually quite impressive; there are arts and crafts booths, stands where scallion pancakes and brown sugar rice cakes sizzle on hot griddles, and even a pop-up Ferris wheel, rotating lazily in the late afternoon sunshine.

But Sana’s on a mission, scanning the festival for a certain Taiwanese girl. It’s been almost three weeks since she first laid eyes on Tzuyu, first wanted her, and Sana’s now certain that she needs to sleep with this girl. It’s not like she’s sex-deprived – if anything, Sana’s been having _more_ sex lately, hoping to take her mind off long, black hair and pretty eyes. But with each rejection and cold, monosyllabic response, it seems Sana becomes more and more determined to win this game, to charm this unwinnable girl.

Why else, she thinks as she finally spots Tzuyu with Mina and her pulse quickens with excitement, can’t she get the girl out of her head?

“Are you following me?” is what Jennie says to Lisa when she sees them approaching.

Lisa pouts and slings an arm around Chaeyoung’s neck. “I was invited here, thank you very much.” Jennie purses her lips but makes no further comment while Chaeyoung takes it upon herself to make introductions.

A couple steps away, Mina whispers something to Tzuyu, and the younger girl laughs, looking happier than Sana’s ever seen her. Watching them, seeing how close they stand, the way their bodies angle in toward one another, makes the back of Sana’s neck prickle with something unidentifiable, but it also gives her an idea.

Momo is a terrible wingwoman; even though she’s been having dinner with Tzuyu nearly every day, she promptly shut down Sana’s request to set her up. What’s more, Sana’s positive Momo tells Tzuyu awful (and possibly true, but still awful) things about her during practice. Mina, on the other hand, knows Tzuyu. She knows how to make the stony Taiwanese girl smile, wide enough for a tiny dimple to appear on her left cheek, one that Sana didn’t know she had and, for some reason, desperately wants to see again.

So when Momo demands that Tzuyu take her to the food stalls, Sana seizes the opportunity to wind her arm through Mina’s and pull the younger girl deeper into the festival. If Mina’s surprised, she doesn’t show it, and they walk in silence for a few minutes before Sana says, “I want to hook up with Tzuyu.”

“I know,” Mina replies with an amused quirk of her lips. “On Tuesday, she made me move a seat away so you wouldn’t sit on her again.” Sana frowns. People usually love it when she sits on their laps.

Seeing her petulant expression, Mina offers her a sympathetic smile. “Tzuyu isn’t the easiest to get close to. She’s always wary of new people, and she doesn’t know what to do with a lot of affection because she’s not used to it.” She lets out a giggle. “It took Nayeon forever to get Tzuyu to like her, and we’re still not sure sometimes.”

They reach the end of the quad and turn back, Mina eyeing the crafts booths curiously and Sana processing this new information. She doesn’t need to get _that_ close to Tzuyu. Just close enough to get her hands on her. But none of her usual tactics are working, so she supposes Mina might be right. “So you’re saying I should be less affectionate?” she asks skeptically.

Mina shrugs, gravitating toward a table with harvest-themed beads and string. “I’m saying you could ease up a little, maybe try to be friends first.”

Sana’s not really interested in being friends with Tzuyu, but before she can tell Mina that, a hand grasps her shoulder and she spins to see Mark Tuan, the ISA Treasurer and basketball captain, grinning down at her. “I’m glad I ran into you,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pair of silver hoop earrings. He drops them into her palm. “You left these this morning.”

“Thank god, I’ve been looking for them everywhere,” Sana exhales with relief, standing on her toes to press a kiss to Mark’s cheek.

He flashes her a crooked smile, white teeth gleaming in the fading sunlight. “Yeah, you could’ve picked ‘em up the next time you come over, but I thought you might want them.” Sana nods and gives him a grateful squeeze on the wrist before he jogs back to his friends.

She turns to Mina, expecting her to still be engrossed by the beads, but instead, she finds the younger girl watching her with an inscrutable expression. It’s unnerving, the way Mina’s looking at her, like she’s trying to figure out where to place a puzzle piece. Sana shifts her weight nervously, shying away from the younger girl’s scrutiny.

Just as she opens her mouth to break the tension that’s suddenly accumulated, thickening the air between them, Mina’s eyes flick over Sana’s shoulder, and she murmurs, dropping into Japanese, “Just don’t hurt her. I don’t know what your intentions are, but don’t play with her.”

Sana isn’t sure how to respond to that. She hesitates, pivoting to see Tzuyu walking toward them, alone. It’s that time of day, on the cusp between afternoon and evening, when the sun bathes everything in gold. Tzuyu looks like a dream. “I don’t want to hurt her,” Sana breathes, also in Japanese. She’s surprised by how much she means it.

“Momo asked me to send Mina,” Tzuyu says when she reaches them, pointing toward the food stands. “She’s with Chaeyoung and Rose.”

“Where’s Jennie?” Mina asks, picking up a half-finished necklace and a handful of beads from the table next to her.

“Making songpyeon with Lisa.” Tzuyu looks a little perplexed by this, but Mina just nods and sets off in the direction of the food stalls, taking her craft project with her. Left alone with Tzuyu, it occurs to Sana that Momo might not be as bad of a wingwoman as she thought.

They walk through the festival together. Sana suppresses the urge to latch onto Tzuyu’s arm, dangling between them, and instead points to the Ferris wheel. “Do you want to ride that?”

Tzuyu gives her a dubious look but agrees, following Sana to the base of the wheel. They climb into the open metal car, which is more of a bench than an actual carriage, and the attendant pulls the lap bar down over them. Then they’re off, slowly rising into the warm evening air as the wheel spins on.

The view is truly spectacular. The sun has just begun to dip below the horizon, and streaks of pink and orange reach across the sky. Fifty meters below them, the festival sprawls across the quad, glimmering with lanterns. Slightly unsettled by her talk with Mina, Sana sits quietly and admires the scene. She’s oddly aware of Tzuyu’s presence beside her, the pattern of the younger girl’s breathing. Unconsciously, she slows her own breaths to match.

“You don’t come to dinner,” Tzuyu says on the third rotation. Sana glances over at her. It’s a statement, not a question, but it opens up a space in the tiny car, one that Tzuyu waits for Sana to fill.

“Oh, um, I work at the library after cheer practice, so I can’t have dinner until later,” she explains, blaming the tremor in her voice on her shock that Tzuyu bothered to initiate a conversation at all. Tzuyu simply nods in reply, gaze trained out over the festival. She looks softer somehow, framed by the watercolor sky, and again, Sana feels that tug in her chest, only stronger this time. It’s unfamiliar, this magnetism, and a little scary, so Sana retreats to something comfortable, breezily adding, “Why, did you miss me?”

It’s almost indiscernible, the stiffening of Tzuyu’s features, but unless Sana’s wrong (she could be; she almost always is), the younger girl seems just the tiniest bit disappointed by her response. Feeling like she made a mistake, like she broke something tentative and fragile floating in the air around them, Sana wishes she could take it back.

She casts about for another topic, eventually blurting out, “I’m jealous of everyone who gets to go home. I won't see my family until next summer.”

Tzuyu’s head cocks slightly. “You don’t go home for Christmas?”

Sana shakes her head, looking off toward the distant mountains, painted purple by the setting sun. “I can’t really afford plane tickets,” she admits with a tinge of self-consciousness. Tzuyu says nothing, but her gaze lingers on Sana for a moment before returning to the view ahead of them.

The Ferris wheel comes to a halt, suspending them at the top. Normally, Sana would be thrilled to have Tzuyu’s eyes on her. But this time, she felt strangely vulnerable under the younger girl’s gentle stare, was somewhat relieved when Tzuyu turned away.

They watch the sun sink below the horizon in silence. That quiet, fragile thing pieces itself back together between them.

Night steadily blankets the festival as the Ferris wheel rotates on, lowering Sana and Tzuyu down to the quad. Sana steps off first, stumbling over a loose cord and into a pair of strong arms.

“Classic.” Momo smirks down at her. Sana sighs and pulls herself upright. “Did you have a romantic ride?”

“You know I don’t do romantic,” Sana says, eyes landing on Tzuyu, talking to Mina a few paces away. At the same time, Jennie appears around the corner of a row of stalls, trailed by an apologetic-looking Lisa.

“If you were going to force me to teach you how to make songpyeon, you should’ve at least eaten some,” Jennie growls.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was gonna taste like _that_ ,” Lisa responds, hiding from Jennie’s glare behind Rose and Chaeyoung.

Jennie makes a small noise of frustration, grabbing Chaeyoung’s wrist and stalking away to get food. After a quick goodbye from Mina and a bordering-on-amiable head nod from Tzuyu, the pair follows the Korean girls, disappearing into the twinkling lights of the festival.

“Well, I’m sure you did better than Lisa,” Momo chuckles, and Sana nods distractedly, her thoughts still fifty meters in the air. Momo takes her arm and leads her toward the crafts area, where Lisa has dragged Rose.

As they walk away, Sana turns back to look at the Ferris wheel, spinning on without them. She does feel like she’s taken another step, made another move in this game. But in what direction, she’s not quite sure.


	5. And It Went Like

_September 29, 2019_

In a lot of ways, the International Students Association trip to Busan is a disaster.

It begins with Lisa introducing her childhood friend BamBam to Mina. For weeks, since Lisa started working at Grounds, BamBam has been stopping by. Supposedly, he wants to see Lisa and really likes the coffee they serve. This would be more believable if he came to any of Lisa’s other shifts, when the café is less crowded and Lisa actually has time to chat. Or if their coffee was any good. But he only comes on Sundays, when it seems as though every hungover student in the area crawls out of bed to get cheap, shitty coffee at the same time.

It would also be easier to believe if he hadn’t asked Lisa, the first time he showed up at Grounds and every Sunday after that, about Mina. Lisa told him to just talk to her, that Mina’s a little reserved but friendly and funny in an odd, quiet way. But despite his jocular attitude, BamBam gets shy around pretty girls, so he ends up returning every weekend to the hectic afternoon shift that Lisa shares with Mina.

The day Lisa introduces him to Mina is a Sunday almost like any other, with two exceptions. The first is that BamBam wants to ask Mina to be his plus one for the ISA board trip to Busan. Lisa thinks it’s a great idea. Though not on the board, she’s been invited by Rose, so she can mediate if anything goes horribly wrong.

The second exception is that, just as Lisa’s hyping BamBam up to talk to Mina, Kim Jennie walks into Grounds. It’s not unusual for Jennie to come here; according to Mina, the older girl comes every day before class. What’s unusual is for her to come here now, when Lisa’s working.

Lisa stands up so quickly she nearly pulls a muscle. “Jennie,” she calls across the coffee shop, waving the other girl over. “Did you come all this way just to see me?”

Jennie pulls off her sunglasses to give Lisa a look that could only described as the annoyed, vaguely repulsed glare you’d give a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. “Of course not.” She scans the bustling café, as if looking for anywhere to sit besides with Lisa. “Shouldn’t you be working?”

“I was taking a break to help BamBam ask Mina out,” Lisa explains.

Jennie frowns. “What the hell is a BamBam?”

“This,” Lisa gestures at the boy, now pink-cheeked and staring at the floor, “is a BamBam. He’s gonna ask Mina to come to Busan for the ISA trip next weekend.”

Jennie sighs and pulls out a chair, sitting down to face BamBam. She gives him a hard stare. “Okay BamBam, where are you from?”

He glances at Lisa nervously before responding, “Uh, Thailand?”

“How do you know Mina?”

“I don’t really.” Seeing the way Jennie’s brow furrows, he quickly amends, “Not yet, anyway.”

“How long was your last relationship, and how did it end?”

BamBam shoots Lisa a helpless look, bewildered by the sudden interrogation. “Okay, that’s enough of that,” Lisa cuts in, taking BamBam by the arm and dragging him across the café to the counter. He follows without complaint, more afraid of Jennie than Mina.

“This is BamBam. He has something he’d like to ask you,” Lisa tells Mina, who pauses grinding coffee to give him a curious stare. BamBam reaches over the counter to shake the Japanese girl’s hand, and Lisa winces internally, but Mina’s smile is warm and amused. They’re both kind of dorky like that, Lisa reflects, watching the pair slip into an easy conversation.

Her mission accomplished, Lisa returns to Jennie, who looks unimpressed by the whole situation. “If your friend turns out to be an asshole, I’m having you both deported back to Thailand.”

“But then you’d miss me too much,” Lisa counters. Jennie rolls her eyes, but there’s a tiny smile hiding in the corners of her lips, one that makes Lisa feel like she’s won a prize.

She knows she has to get back to work, especially now that Mina’s busy with BamBam, but then Jennie’s pulling out her computer, seemingly content with this table even though Lisa’s here and there’s an empty table in the corner of the café that Lisa thinks Jennie would like.

So Lisa stays a little longer, just watching while Jennie does her homework. Jennie doesn’t say anything, and Lisa resists the urge to ask her out again, and the silence that falls over them in those few minutes is comfortable, almost companionable. Later, when she eventually forces herself to return to work, it occurs to Lisa that she forgot to ask why Jennie came here in the first place.

On Tuesday, Tzuyu eats lunch with Jackson Wang. A current senior and old family friend, Jackson likes to think of himself as an older brother figure to Tzuyu, evident from the way he forces her to get lunch with him every few weeks to check in on her. But he takes her to dive restaurants with tanks of fish and braised pork that reminds Tzuyu of Taiwan, so she doesn’t mind the occasional big brother act. 

“I have a proposition for you,” he says when their food arrives – milkfish, which Tzuyu begins dissecting with metal chopsticks. “Although I’m offended that you joined ISA now, instead of last year when I told you to, I’m inviting you to Busan with me this weekend.”

Tzuyu keeps eating. Knowing Jackson, the trip will end up being more of a bender than a vacation, but Tzuyu’s never been to Busan and the eel is supposed to be incredible. Taking her lack of response as reluctance, Jackson presses, “I know you don’t have a game because Momo and Lisa are coming. Mina will be there, and Mark said he’ll bring Nayeon. It’ll be fun.”

It does sound like fun, and before she really even decides, Tzuyu’s nodding. Mina’s arguably the most responsible of her friends, and Nayeon is… well, the oldest, which probably counts for something. She doesn’t think about it beyond that because Jackson quickly changes the subject (maybe before she can change her mind), and Tzuyu spends the rest of lunch explaining how volleyball works to him.

If she had thought about it a little harder, though, she could’ve predicted how things would turn out. She knew Sana would come talk to her before ISA, and she could’ve guessed the blonde would invite her to Busan. Since she’s already going, it makes sense that Sana’s next choice would be her best friend, Dahyun.

But Tzuyu also knew that Dahyun is busy this weekend; she and Chaeyoung – who met about ten days ago and have been inseparable ever since – are going to a music festival in Incheon together. So Sana would likely ask Jeongyeon. As far as Tzuyu knows, Sana doesn’t have any other friends who aren’t already going on the trip. And since there’s no soccer game this weekend, Jeongyeon wouldn’t have a reason to say no.

So really, Tzuyu could’ve predicted that she’d end up on the Friday afternoon train to Busan, sandwiched between the window and Minatozaki Sana. That doesn’t make it any better when Sana, five minutes after the train leaves the station, drops her head onto Tzuyu’s shoulder and promptly falls asleep. Though separated by Mina, Rose, and an aisle, Nayeon and Jeongyeon manage to sustain a verbal sparring match in the row behind them (“Can you lean back, Im? Your big head is blocking my view.” “Excuse me, this is the size heads are when they have brains in them, you cro-magnon.”), and Tzuyu marvels at Sana’s ability to sleep through it all.

The girl looks so peaceful, breaths deep and a contented little smile on her face. Tzuyu almost feels bad when she pushes Sana’s head, gently as she can, off her shoulder and onto the headrest, making the older girl’s lips twitch momentarily into a frown. Sana resituates herself, shifting in her seat with a quiet sigh, and falls back asleep. Tzuyu stares for a second longer, wondering if the blonde sleeps through fire alarms too. Then she slips on her headphones and stares out the window, watching the scenery rush past as they hurtle away from Seoul.

They pull into Busan Station three hours later. The sun sets during the cab ride from the station, and by the time they check into their hotel, it’s nearly seven. Jackson returns from the front desk with six room keys, five of which he fans out on the coffee table they’ve gathered around. “Alright, who wants to sleep with who?”

Sana gives Tzuyu a meaningful look, and the younger girl quickly reaches for Mina’s arm. “We’ll take one room,” she says, taking a key card and scooting away from Sana, who pouts at the rejection.

Lisa turns to Jackson. “If you and Mark are rooming together, and Momo and Heechul are gonna want to share a room,” she gestures at the couple, absorbed in what looks like an effort to literally consume one another, “then I guess I’m sharing with BamBam. Unless someone else wants to?” She wiggles her eyebrows at Mina and BamBam, who both become suddenly engrossed in admiring the hotel lobby decorations, looking everywhere but each other. She nods confirmatively and picks up two room keys, tossing one at Momo, who detaches from Heechul just in time for the card to hit her on the forehead.

“Jeongyeon will yell at me for being messy,” Sana explains as she slides a key off the table and gives it to Rose. Their rooms decided, the ten of them grab their luggage and begin heading toward the elevators in pairs. One room card remains on the table, between Nayeon and Jeongyeon, who look at the card, then at each other with matching expressions of horror.

“How the hell did _this_ happen?”

The next morning, Sana and Rose get to breakfast in time to see the boys before they take off for some all-day brewery tour that no one else was interested in. Once they leave, there’s a pleasant ten minutes or so where Rose and Momo are attempting to try every item offered by the buffet, Lisa’s showing Sana how her camera works, and Tzuyu and Mina are eating quietly, exchanging comments in hushed tones.

Then the tranquility of the morning is shattered when Nayeon and Jeongyeon appear, together, loudly engaged in what could be a continuation of the same argument they began last night (or the same one they’ve been having, seemingly without rest, for weeks). “I don’t want to go to the beach and see your massive, webbed feet,” Jeongyeon groans, dropping her bag into the seat next to Sana.

Nayeon scoffs and pulls out the seat next to Jeongyeon’s. “Or is it that you sink like a rock in the ocean because your brain is made of concrete?” she fires back, picking up two plates and handing one to the short-haired girl.

“Can you even get wet? Won’t you melt or something?” Jeongyeon returns, taking the plate. They go get food and come back, quarreling the entire time. The other six share a collective sigh, genuinely amazed that the two girls now discarding orange peels on each other’s plates are the oldest among them.

After breakfast, they go back to their rooms to get ready for the day, then head out. A short cab ride takes them to Songdo Beach, since “Haeundae is for everyone,” as Nayeon said with no small amount of disdain. A few meters from the water, they spread out towels on the white sand, arranging themselves so that Nayeon is on one end, next to Mina, and Jeongyeon is on the other, next to Rose.

Sana begins taking off her clothes immediately. Tossing them onto her towel, she turns to Tzuyu with a bottle of sunscreen in her hand and a teasing smile on her lips. “Do you want to get my back?”

Of their own accord, Tzuyu’s eyes travel the length of Sana’s body, lingering on tiny freckles sprinkled across smooth, pale skin. The older girl’s bikini leaves very little to the imagination, and despite the breeze rolling in from the ocean, Tzuyu finds herself suddenly warm. Unsure where to direct her gaze (she’s learned her lesson about looking Sana in the eyes), she glances back out toward the shore, responding with a stiff, “No.”

Sana just shrugs and asks Momo instead, and Tzuyu relaxes, hoping the blonde didn’t notice her prolonged staring. But even as Momo smears sunscreen over Sana’s shoulders, there’s a satisfied gleam in the older girl’s eyes that makes Tzuyu think that Sana did notice, that she got exactly what she wanted from that interaction.

“Switch rooms with me,” Nayeon says from the other side of Mina, drawing Tzuyu’s attention. As if an explanation is necessary, Nayeon levels a glare at Jeongyeon, so potently loathing that it’s a wonder Jeongyeon can’t feel it searing into the side of her head. “If I have to spend another night with that imbecile, I _will_ burn the hotel to the ground with all of us inside.”

Tzuyu’s less surprised by the request than she is by the fact that they even survived the first night together, so she agrees to the swap. Nayeon smirks triumphantly and lies down on her towel, only to pop back up with an ear-piercing shriek. On the towel, where Nayeon’s head was about to go, sits a shiny, scarlet crab, waving its pincers agitatedly.

For all Tzuyu knows, that crab could easily have just crawled there, but Nayeon knows better. “YOO!” she yells at Jeongyeon, whose smug cackling lasts for a second before she’s sprinting toward the shore, pursued by a furious Nayeon.

The chase ends with Jeongyeon shoving Nayeon face-first into an oncoming wave, then diving in after her. When both girls resurface, a few meters apart, they look more giddy than annoyed, invigorated by the cold seawater. Disembodied heads bobbing above the swell of the water, they flail their arms, beckoning the others to come join them.

Tzuyu and Mina stay on the sand, Tzuyu because she doesn’t like the ocean and Mina to keep the younger girl company. They stand at the shoreline, the tide lapping at their feet. After a few moments of watching the other girls play in the water, Mina says softly, “I like them.”

Momo floats face-up, sprawled out on the surface of the water, while Rose struggles to stay afloat, weighed down by Lisa clinging onto her like a koala. Nayeon and Jeongyeon splash at each other, calling out insults between breaths. The sunlight catches on ripples, making the sea glimmer, and there’s a balmy, hazy quality to the afternoon that makes the whole scene feel fuzzy and idyllic. “Me too,” Tzuyu muses.

Then there’s a wet arm, cool against Tzuyu’s sun-warmed skin, looping around her neck, and she turns to see Sana, the answer to a question she didn’t realize she was asking, beaming up at her. “I was wondering where you went,” Mina tells the blonde. _Me too_ , Tzuyu thinks but doesn’t say, eyes following a drop of water as it trails down Sana’s neck, past her collarbones, and… Tzuyu redirects her stare to the ocean, cheeks pink.

“Come swim,” Sana entreats, tugging gently at Tzuyu’s shoulder. Tzuyu shakes her head, and Sana frowns. Releasing Tzuyu’s neck, Sana moves to stand in front of the younger girl and takes her hand, pulling more insistently. “It’s really nice Tzuyu-ah, I promise.”

Sana’s giving her that look, Tzuyu knows, but she can’t avoid eye contact with the girl when she’s standing right in front of her. So she holds Sana’s gaze, notices the way the Japanese girl’s eyes sparkle with exhilaration, the pleading set of her bottom lip, the miniscule flecks of water caught in her eyelashes.

And really, Tzuyu never stood a chance.

For the second time that week, she finds herself nodding before her brain catches up with her body. Vaguely, it occurs to Tzuyu that she never thinks as little as she does around Sana. Then the blonde lets out a happy squeak and drags Tzuyu under the waves along with a bemused Mina.

When she resurfaces, Tzuyu feels a brief rush of panic. She likes having the sand under her feet, grounding her. The ocean is so vast, so volatile and uncontrollable. It makes Tzuyu feel helpless, like she could be swept away at any moment.

But then Sana emerges, hair slicked back and an elated smile stretched across her lips, and Tzuyu feels similarly unmoored, but for an entirely different reason.

Sana grasps her wrist underwater, drawing her closer, and instead of pulling away, Tzuyu lets the older girl hold onto her. Because despite the cold, salty water swirling around her, the current tugging at her feet, the way Sana’s proximity always manages to unbalance Tzuyu in a way she doesn’t fully understand – despite all of that, Sana’s touch relaxes Tzuyu. Anchored by the blonde’s hand around her wrist, Tzuyu feels strangely calm.

Then Sana’s trying to wrap all her limbs around Tzuyu, and even if Tzuyu wanted that (she doesn’t), she isn’t a good enough swimmer to keep them both above the surface, so she extricates herself from the older girl’s grip and paddles away. But as they join the others and Momo splashes at Sana, causing the blonde to shriek delightedly and splash back, Tzuyu can’t help but think that, maybe, the ocean isn’t all that bad.

They grab late lunch near the beach, then take the cable car to the Songdo skywalk. There, suspended on a wooden walkway fifty meters above the water, they watch the sun drop below the horizon. It’s the kind of sunset where the sky is just cloudy enough and the ocean isn’t too smooth and the dying light pours color onto every edge and curve, turning the world orange. It’s the kind that demands attention, and even Nayeon and Jeongyeon stop fighting to watch, struck silent, as the sun is swallowed by the sea.

It’s their last peaceful moment for a while because as soon as night falls, it starts to pour. The same clouds that burned pink in the sunset now split open, unleashing a flood of rain onto the eight girls, who run, shrieking, back along the pathway. Any glamor of being caught in the rain is lost in the force of the downpour. By the time they reach the street, they’re out of breath and completely drenched.

They wait for taxis on the sidewalk, huddled together for shelter. Sana stands as close to Momo as she can without actually being on top of her, while Jeongyeon attempts to cover both Lisa and Rose with a wet beach towel. The wind pushes the rain into diagonal sheets that slice relentlessly down onto them, and the pitch of their squeals rises with the intensity of the storm.

Amidst the chaos, Sana notices Tzuyu shift to stand upwind of Mina and Nayeon, blocking the shower with her tall frame. The dim glow cast by the streetlights outlines everything in yellow, and even rain-soaked and shivering, Tzuyu is unfairly pretty. The wind roars in Sana’s ears, blending with the distant crash of waves against the shore. Her heart pounds with the leftover adrenaline of running through the downpour. And beneath it all, there’s a tightness in her chest, one that stays, follows her into the cab and all the way back to the hotel.

They make a beeline through the lobby, trying not to drip too much on the pristine floors. Before they can take the elevator up to change, they’re intercepted by the boys, holding plastic bags with containers of soy sauce crab and two-liter bottles of soju. From the amount of noise they make and the way they smell, it’s clear that they’re already wasted. Despite their protests, the girls are rowdily ushered up the elevator and into Jackson and Mark’s room, wet clothes and all.

The boys push the beds to the sides, creating a space in the middle of the room for the twelve of them to form a cramped circle on the floor. While Rose and Mina unpack the food, Jackson pours overly-generous shots into water glasses. Sana downs the first instantly, the cold burn of the alcohol loosening the knot in her chest. She takes a second, then a third, feeling everything – the chatter, the squeak of plastic forks on styrofoam, the gentle ache of being around Tzuyu without having her – dull and soften as she passes from tipsy to drunk.

Once they’ve finished eating, Jackson suggests a drinking game. After some debate (“I’m _not_ playing spin the bottle with you losers.” “No one wants to kiss you anyway, Im.”), they settle on truth or drink, and Jackson directs the first question at Heechul: “What’s your least favorite thing about Momo?”

“No way,” he responds quickly, draining his glass with one hand and flipping Jackson off with the other. He peers around the room, choosing a target, before stopping on Mark. Grinning childishly, Heechul points at the younger boy and asks, “Who was the best sex you’ve ever had?”

“Sana,” Mark says without hesitation, slinging his arm around the blonde. The boys jeer drunkenly, and Sana flushes, caught somewhere between proud and embarrassed. Of their own accord, her eyes drift to the other side of the circle, where she finds Tzuyu looking back at her. Usually the Taiwanese girl seems to make every effort to avoid eye contact, but this time, she doesn’t. She just holds Sana’s gaze, eyes dark and unreadable.

Mark asks Nayeon a question – something about Jinyoung, Sana thinks; she barely hears him – and the game continues around her, but Tzuyu is still watching her with those eyes, and Sana can’t really focus on anything else. They stare at each other across empty takeout containers and bottles of soju.

Distantly, Sana hears Nayeon calling her name. She tears her gaze from Tzuyu to look at the older girl, and it feels like coming up for air.

“Why are you so obsessed with Tzuyu?” Nayeon asks once she has the Japanese girl’s attention. It’s a silly question, more rhetorical than anything, but Sana hesitates. In part, it’s the alcohol clouding her brain, making her slow and foggy. But it’s also the fact that, deep down, she doesn’t really know. She doesn’t know why she can’t stop thinking about Tzuyu, why every time she sees the younger girl, her heart pauses, clenches, like it’s waiting for something.

She’s taking too long to respond, Sana realizes hazily, so she goes with the obvious answer. “I mean, look at her,” she says, gesturing at Tzuyu. For some reason, it feels kind of like a lie, but it must sound convincing because the others simply nod, accepting the offhand explanation. Sana quickly continues the game, asking Mina how she feels about BamBam, and even though she answered the question, Sana takes another shot.

Things get a little blurry after that. Truth or drink rapidly devolves into truth _and_ drink, and eventually, they abandon the game altogether in favor of just getting trashed. Jackson turns on his speaker to blast American music, which results in several rounds of spirited, if a little off-key, karaoke. At one point, BamBam passes out in Mina’s lap, and Lisa breaks a glass during an ill-conceived attempt to juggle.

Once Heechul, red-faced and stumbling, throws up on Nayeon’s feet, they call it a night. Mina helps Lisa drag BamBam into bed, then follows a thoroughly displeased Nayeon to their room. Mark falls asleep on the floor, surrounded by empty bottles, so Tzuyu stays to help Jackson clean up before turning in.

After the trash has been collected and the shards of glass have been swept up, Tzuyu crosses the hall and quietly unlocks the door to her new room, expecting Jeongyeon to already be asleep. But when she pushes the door open, she finds Sana sitting on one of the beds, watching rain fall through the window.

The blonde lets out an astonished, happy little sound when she sees Tzuyu. “What are the odds?”

“Pretty high,” Tzuyu responds, moving to sit on the opposite bed. Honestly, with the way things have been going, she should’ve expected that both Nayeon and Jeongyeon would attempt to change their rooming situation. From the corner of her eye, she sees Sana shift, as if to stand, so she adds, “Stay on your side.”

The Japanese girl frowns but stays put, and Tzuyu slides under the sheets without another word. Sleepy-drunk and exhausted from the day, she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

She’s awakened a few hours later by the crash of thunder. As she stirs, her thoughts pushing through the fog of sleep, Tzuyu becomes aware of two things: first, the storm has worsened. Outside, the wind howls, lashing fat raindrops against the windows, and every few minutes, the room is illuminated by white forks of lightning.

And second, there’s a weight on her left arm, one that she registers – with some surprise, but mostly just with mild irritation – as Sana’s head, nestled against her shoulder.

Right as she’s about to tell the older girl to go back to her own bed, there’s another flash of lightning, accompanied by a clap of thunder so loud the room shakes, and Sana whimpers, burrowing further into Tzuyu’s side. The blonde is trembling, nearly crying, her hands clamped tightly over her ears. She’s genuinely scared, Tzuyu realizes, which might be the first real thing Sana’s shown her since they met.

Tzuyu thinks back to her decision, made carelessly over cheap Chinese food, to come on this trip. It was the first of several that led her here, to this bed in this room in Busan, next to this girl who’s afraid of thunder but not of sitting on stranger’s laps. Staring up at the ceiling with Sana quivering against her, Tzuyu wonders, idly, at what point in that series of choices this moment became inevitable.

She makes another decision then, to leave Sana be and go back to sleep. The fingers on her left hand have started to go numb, so she shifts slightly, unintentionally pulling Sana closer. The older girl makes a soft, contented sound and relaxes against her. Tzuyu stills as Sana curls into her side.

The storm rages on around them, but it’s quiet in here. Tzuyu drifts back to sleep slowly, carried by the drumming of rainfall and the faint smell of orange blossoms.

It ends with the twelve of them, hungover as hell, on the Sunday morning train back to Seoul. Mina sits with BamBam, so Tzuyu sits next to Nayeon, half-listening to the older girl complain about the trip while staring out the window.

“I had to spend a night with Yoo Jeongyeon, it literally started typhooning, Heechul vomited on me, oh, and I had to spend a night with _Jeongyeon_.”

Nayeon’s not wrong; in many ways, the ISA trip to Busan was a disaster. Heechul stares vacantly at the seatback in front of him, and Lisa and Rose slump together, clutching water bottles like stuffed animals.

But as Tzuyu’s gaze travels around the bus, pausing on Mina and BamBam, leaning against each other to sleep, before coming to rest on Sana, she feels like it wasn’t really such a disaster. Sana sees Tzuyu looking and gives her an uncharacteristically shy smile, one that makes the younger girl’s stomach feel weird. No, Tzuyu thinks absently, in the end, the trip wasn’t really a disaster at all.


	6. A Question of Probability

_October 22, 2019_

It starts because Sana needs help with statistics. She loves the psychology major; she’s always been fascinated by people, and she likes learning about how they work and what makes them happy. But she doesn’t love math, and her required stat class is proving to be a lot more math than she expected.

She whines about it to Tzuyu, Mina, and Lisa before ISA on Tuesday, to mixed reactions. Mina is sympathetic, while Lisa, who’s heard this same rant repeatedly over the past couple months, half-listens while texting Jennie (something Sana’s noticed the Thai girl doing more and more frequently). Tzuyu just listens silently, waiting for Sana to finish complaining.

“I’ll help,” she says after a pause, surprising all of them, most of all Tzuyu herself, who blinks confusedly, as if wondering where that came from. Sana squeals happily and flings her arms around the younger girl, who leans away slightly but allows the contact, and Mina and Lisa exchange bemused looks.

They’re surprised, certainly, but not as surprised as they would’ve been were it not for the fact that, to everyone’s bewilderment, Tzuyu has been warming up to Sana.

She’s not exactly throwing herself at the blonde, but she has started to tolerate her, which is more than anyone expected. Rather than outright ignoring the older girl, Tzuyu listens when Sana talks, even responding occasionally. And on Tuesdays, she always leaves a space for the Japanese girl to sit next to her before ISA meetings. Initially, it was to keep Sana from sitting on top of her, but she stopped doing that weeks ago, and now they pass those few minutes in comfortable, albeit a little one-sided, conversation.

No one understands it, least of all Sana, who feels increasingly perplexed by what, exactly, they’re doing. She used to fantasize about having sex with Tzuyu; she’d imagine what sounds the typically restrained Taiwanese girl would make, how she’d feel, what she’d look like tumbling over the edge.

But lately, her fantasies have gotten weirdly mundane. She has daydreams about bumping into Tzuyu in the hallway between classes, and she imagines what it would be like to study together. At random times throughout the day, she finds herself thinking about the younger girl, wondering if she’s eaten yet or if she’s having a good day. She wonders if Tzuyu thinks about her too, misses her the way Sana’s started to.

And so, as she sits across from Tzuyu two days later, fiddling with a pencil while the dark-haired girl looks over her homework, Sana feels strangely giddy, like she’s living out a fantasy. She sits behind the library information desk, next to which Tzuyu has pulled up a chair. It’s just past five, and Sana’s technically on the clock, pausing every so often to direct students or check out books.

“This is wrong,” Tzuyu says, sliding a sheet of paper across the desk and pointing at a problem halfway down the page. Sana stares at the question, trying to figure out where she made a mistake, and Tzuyu quietly turns to her own work.

After a couple of minutes, Sana gives up and leans forward to tap the younger girl on the arm with the end of her pencil. “I don’t understand,” she confesses when Tzuyu looks up at her. “Like, at all.”

Tzuyu blinks at her for a second before nodding and pushing her work to the side. “Do you know Bayesian probability?” Sana shakes her head, uncomprehending. “What about conditional probability?” Another head shake. Tzuyu frowns gently, thinking. Then, with more patience than Sana deserves, she’s sure, the younger girl begins to explain, “Probability is the chance of something happening, right?”

Sana nods, and Tzuyu continues, “Well, conditional probability is just the chance of something happening given that something else, something related, has already happened. It’s using information you have to calculate the likelihood of a future, connected event.”

She proceeds to walk Sana through the problem, stopping to elaborate when she thinks (correctly) that she’s lost the Japanese girl. Sana does her best to pay attention, but it’s the most consecutive words she’s heard Tzuyu say, and she ends up focusing more on the sound of Tzuyu’s voice, the subtle, almost indiscernible modulations in her tone, than on the actual solution.

“So, you can use probability to predict the future?” she asks when Tzuyu finishes explaining.

Unexpectedly, the Taiwanese girl lights up at that, eyes twinkling as she nods. “Exactly. It’s kind of beautiful.” Tzuyu takes the paper back and begins scanning through the rest of the problems. Sana watches her, tapping the end of her pen against her lower lip.

“If I asked you out every day, what’s the likelihood that one of those times, you’ll say yes?” she asks a moment later.

Tzuyu stills, brow furrowing. “That’s… not how probability works.”

“But what are the odds?” Sana presses.

Tzuyu sighs and looks up from the page, meeting Sana’s entreating stare. She hesitates for a second – Sana sees it, wonders if the younger girl is actually calculating the probability in her head – before answering, “Slim.”

Sana beams. “I’ll take it.”

Tzuyu eyes her warily, already knowing what’s coming.

“Do you want to go out?”

“No.” Tzuyu pushes Sana’s problem set, with several questions circled, back across the table before returning to her own homework. “And those are wrong too.”

So that’s how it starts. Some days, it’ll happen while Tzuyu’s helping Sana with statistics. The blonde will glance up, lock eyes with Tzuyu, and toss the question across the desk, so casually it sounds more like a formality than an invitation.

On days Tzuyu doesn’t see Sana, it comes as a text. Sometimes she wakes up to it, reads the older girl’s message – usually punctuated by unnecessary emojis – before she’s even fully awake. Other times, it comes late, lighting up her phone just before midnight.

But at some point each day, without fail, Sana asks, and Tzuyu says no. It becomes another of the Taiwanese girl’s routines. (Tzuyu doesn’t know when so many of her routines began involving Sana)

Aside from making the younger girl question Sana’s grasp of probability, the repeated invitation bothers Tzuyu. It’s the way Sana asks her out, with such blasé, like it means nothing to her. It opens up a hollow in Tzuyu’s chest. She tries to ignore it, but the space remains, grows a little each time Sana asks, as if waiting to be filled.

More bothersome still, Sana has, of late, become a huge distraction to Tzuyu.

In her entire life, Tzuyu’s never had trouble concentrating; it’s part of what makes her such a good student. But recently, she’s finding it harder and harder to focus when Sana’s around. They’ll be studying in the library, and Tzuyu will look over to see the other girl absorbed in her homework, brow furrowed in concentration. And just that – just the sight of Sana, absentmindedly chewing on the end of a pencil – is enough to derail her.

It’s worst when Tzuyu’s playing volleyball. The cheerleaders don’t all come to every game, but Sana hasn’t missed a single one. The blonde’s animated cheers, originally more of a mild nuisance, now divert Tzuyu’s attention entirely, pulling her out of the zone. She never used to make mistakes, but now, she’s lucky if she makes it through a whole game without stumbling over her feet, all because Sana called her name.

It comes up at the beginning of November, after Tzuyu gets nailed in the side of the head by a misdirected pass.

This time, it wasn’t even Sana’s fault. Halfway through the fourth set, Tzuyu glanced over to where the Japanese girl was talking to Bae Joohyun, the Investment Banking Club President and cheer captain. Sana tossed her head back to laugh, high and clear, and the next thing Tzuyu knew, she was on the floor with a headache and Lisa staring worriedly down at her.

After the game, they’re celebrating their win at Momo’s apartment when Seulgi pulls Tzuyu to the kitchen with her to get another drink. “How’s your head?” the older girl opens, poking through the fridge for a mixer.

“It’s fine,” Tzuyu shrugs. Seulgi nods, retrieving a couple of bottles and setting them on the counter.

“I get it,” she says, casting a sidelong glance at the couch, where Sana sits with Nayeon and Joohyun. The corner of her lip curls up fondly. “I was the same way.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Seulgi just chuckles and pats Tzuyu on the shoulder, handing her a drink with the other hand. “I’m sure you don’t.”

She walks toward the threshold separating them from the living room, then stops and turns back. “I broke a finger watching Joohyun do the splits, though, so I’d figure it out before Sana learns any new talents.”

With that, Seulgi leaves the kitchen to flop down on the couch next to Joohyun, slinging an arm around her girlfriend. Following the older girl into the living room, Tzuyu takes a sip of her drink, wrinkling her nose when she discovers it’s essentially just vodka with a splash of lemonade. Across the room, Sana giggles at something Seulgi says, eyes sparkling.

Tzuyu holds her breath and drains her glass.

About an hour later, after the soccer game ends, they’re joined by Jeongyeon, Chaeyoung, and Jihyo, and the average volume in the apartment increases rapidly. Jeongyeon and Chaeyoung clamor for a drinking game, hoping to catch up to the others, who range in drunkenness from Nayeon, loudly cheering at the proposition, to Sana, observing from her spot on the couch.

Sana’s eyes roam the impromptu party. In one corner of the living room, Nayeon and Jeongyeon criticize each other’s beverage choices (“Hard seltzer? Could you _be_ more of a cheerleader?” “Sorry we’re not all beer-drinking lesbians, Yoo.”), while Chaeyoung animatedly describes her game-winning goal to Momo and Lisa.

It isn’t until she spots Tzuyu, emerging from the kitchen with Jihyo, that Sana realizes she’s been doing it again, unconsciously searching for the Taiwanese girl. It’s unmistakable, the feeling, somewhere between surprise and relief, of finding something you didn’t know you were looking for. Like noticing how tense you are only once you let your shoulders drop away from your ears.

As Sana watches, Tzuyu sways where she stands, cheeks rosy. Jihyo guides her into a chair, then disappears back into the kitchen.

Before her brain can catch up with her body, Sana’s crossing the room to sit next to Tzuyu. “Are you having fun?” she questions softly, reaching over to brush a stray lock of hair behind the younger girl’s ear.

A second delayed, Tzuyu swivels her head to consider the blonde. Her gaze is unfocused, muddled by the alcohol, but her eyes glimmer in the dim light. She nods belatedly, staring at Sana in a way that makes the older girl feel oddly exposed.

Suddenly shy, Sana breaks eye contact and brings her hand back to her lap, fingertips tingling from the contact with Tzuyu’s skin. “Is your head okay?” she asks after a beat.

Tzuyu nods a second time, mouth quirking up as if she finds the question amusing. She leans in, lips parting to speak, but she’s cut off by a shout from Chaeyoung, calling everyone into the living room for a drinking game.

Sana glances at Tzuyu, eyebrows lifting as she gestures toward the couch. “Do you want to play a game?”

Tzuyu blinks slowly, long eyelashes sweeping down over dark, glazed eyes.

“Aren’t we already playing a game?”

Sana falters. The words are slurred and hold no accusatory edge – no tone at all, really – but they land in her stomach, heavy and hard. She doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know why her mouth drops open as if she does. She’s not sure how long Tzuyu’s been thinking about this, or how much she meant it, or if she’ll even remember any of this in the morning.

All Sana knows is that this… whatever this is stopped feeling like a game to her a long time ago.

She’s saved from having to answer by Jihyo, returning from the kitchen with a cup of water and two painkillers. “Drink this,” the Korean girl encourages, holding the glass out to Tzuyu, who obediently begins to hydrate.

“She doesn’t usually drink this much,” Jihyo explains, helping the younger girl to her feet. Tzuyu wobbles as she stands, and Jihyo grasps the taller girl’s arm to steady her. She glances at Sana. “Can she lie down somewhere?”

Still rattled by Tzuyu’s question, Sana nods dumbly and rises from her seat. Taking Tzuyu’s other arm, she helps Jihyo lead the teetering girl down the hallway and into her room, where they lay her down in Sana’s bed. Tzuyu wriggles under the covers, making herself comfortable, and Jihyo smiles fondly down at her, leaning over to push the younger girl’s hair off her forehead. 

Tzuyu falls asleep almost instantly, deep breaths just audible over the muffled chatter trickling through the door. The tip of her nose twitches, scrunching up as she slips into a dream.

And there it is again, the now-familiar pull in Sana’s chest. Only this time, it hurts a little, stings with the notion that she’s set them on a trajectory she can't change. It’s like being on a one-way train; Sana bought the tickets, built the track, knows exactly where the train is going. She’s just not sure she wants to go there anymore.

“I hope you know what you're doing.”

Sana nearly jumps, startled. She’d forgotten Jihyo was still here. “What do you mean?”

“I know how you can be,” Jihyo says quietly, fixing the older girl with a mild stare. Even in the darkness, Sana can see the seriousness in the Korean girls eyes. “Just… not this time, okay? She’s not like you. If you're only messing around, stop before this goes too far.”

It reminds Sana of what Mina said to her, all those weeks ago at the Chuseok fair, and she’s struck by how protective Tzuyu’s friends are of her. But as the Taiwanese girl shifts restlessly, pulling the blankets up to her nose, Sana understands. Honestly, she’s started to feel the same way, like she wants to cover Tzuyu in bubble wrap and keep her safe from the world.

It’s weird.

Before Sana can respond (not that she even knows what to say), someone calls for Jihyo, and the Korean girl stands. “Can you watch Tzuyu for a second?” she asks Sana, who nods and moves to sit at the edge of the bed. Jihyo crosses the room and opens the door, then stops in the threshold and turns back.

“I think you might be good for her, though,” she says, tone softer than before. Sana looks up in surprise as Jihyo continues, “I can’t put my finger on it, but she seems happier these days. Lighter.”

She pauses, staring at Sana searchingly. “I just hope I’m not wrong.”

The door swings shut behind her, and Sana glances at the girl sleeping in her bed. She hopes Jihyo’s right too. For whatever reason, Sana wants to be good for Tzuyu. But as she sits in the dim light, listening to the younger girl’s even breathing, she has a sinking feeling that she’s not.

The clock on her nightstand reads five minutes to midnight, and it occurs to Sana that she hasn’t asked Tzuyu out yet today. It’s a pointless question, and the younger girl is fast asleep, but Sana asks anyway, whispering the invitation into the darkened room,

“Do you want to go out with me, Tzuyu-ah?”

The Taiwanese girl stirs, shifting under the covers, and Sana freezes, but Tzuyu simply sighs and turns over, still sleeping. Sana exhales, relieved she didn’t wake the younger girl.

Deep down, she feels another kind of relief – a softer one, but with implications she doesn’t want to think about. Because despite the number of times she’s asked this question, one that doesn’t really mean anything to either of them, and despite how many times she’s been rejected, Sana thinks, quietly, that it might hurt a lot more to hear another ‘no’ from Tzuyu right now.


	7. Change

_November 24, 2019_

Sometimes, change is slow. It’s the steady arc of the sun across the sky, the gradual transition from dawn to dusk. It’s looking up during the day to see, to your surprise, that the sun has seemingly jumped along its path, pushing toward the horizon undetectably, but inexorably.

It’s how Jennie feels when she gets sick and accidentally calls Lisa on a Sunday afternoon.

She wakes up well past noon, a rare occurrence for her, drenched in sweat and shivering. After blinking herself awake, only for the midday light to scythe into her brain, she slams her eyes shut again and fumbles blindly for her phone to ask someone for help.

She tries calling Jisoo first, but realizes the older girl’s hosting Kim Bops (and even alone in her room with a splitting headache, Jennie rolls her eyes at the pun) after a few rings and hangs up. Jihyo has student council on Sundays, and Mina’s at Grounds, so Jennie resorts to her arguably worst option and calls Nayeon, dialing from her phone’s automated favorites list with her eyes still screwed shut. 

When the other girl answers, Jennie manages to grunt out a curt request (demand) for Nayeon to come home and take care of her before ending the call and fading back into a feverish slumber.

At least an hour later, Jennie’s roused again by the tinkling chime of the doorbell. She should think it’s strange that Im Nayeon, who doesn’t even knock before interrupting Jennie mid-shower, would ring the doorbell in their own apartment, but her head is cottony and aching, so she just yells out a hoarse “come the fuck in” and pulls the blankets tighter around herself.

“What took you so long?” she questions grumpily when she hears footsteps stop outside her door.

“Sorry, I was picking up some stuff,” Lisa apologizes, pushing through the doorway with at least six kinds of medicine and several containers in her arms.

Jennie sits up sharply, startled, then reclines again with a groan when the abrupt motion triggers a wave of nausea. “What are you doing here?” she croaks once her head stops spinning.

“You called me,” Lisa says, quirking an eyebrow in confusion. Jennie curses her luck inwardly (and also wonders when and how Lisa surpassed Nayeon in her favorites list), but then a violent coughing fit overtakes her, and she acknowledges that she’s not really in a position to be choosy about her caretaker.

“Let me get you some water,” Lisa says, setting down the veritable pharmacy she’d brought – bought, by the looks of the plastic bag with a receipt still inside – and disappearing downstairs.

By the time she comes back, Jennie has attempted to rearrange herself a bit, fiercely aware, for the first time in her life, of the fact that she looks absolutely disgusting right now. But Lisa doesn’t seem to mind, simply crossing the room to set a glass on Jennie’s nightstand before sitting at the edge of the bed.

Jennie eyes Lisa’s bag of medications. “I didn’t know what kind of sick you were,” the younger girl says by way of explanation, scratching the back of her neck awkwardly. She rummages through the bag for a second, pulling out a bottle of sickly green liquid. “But it looks like you might have the flu, so I’d drink this.”

Jennie accepts the medicine, which Lisa pours into a tiny plastic cup for her. Once she finishes choking down the syrupy fluid, the Thai girl begins unpacking the containers she brought. “I’m also assuming you haven’t eaten anything yet,” she says, giving Jennie a chastising look. “Do you like _samgyetang_?”

Before Jennie can say anything, the sharp, gingery smell of the broth hits her nose, and her stomach gurgles loudly, answering for her. Lisa chuckles and hands the older girl a spoon. Their hands brush as Jennie accepts the utensil, Lisa’s cool fingertips meeting Jennie’s trembling, doubtlessly clammy fingers. A little thrill surges up Jennie’s arm, and she drops the spoon in surprise.

Lisa, misinterpreting the action, retrieves the utensil and scoops up some soup, holding the spoonful aloft in front of Jennie’s lips. Jennie wants to protest – to tell the younger girl she’s sick, not an _invalid_ – but a drop of hot broth falls into Lisa’s hand, cupped below the spoon, and the younger girl winces. So Jennie just leans forward and takes the spoon into her mouth, feeling the warm broth soothe her empty stomach.

Half a cup of soup later, Jennie starts to feel drowsy as the cold medicine takes hold. She tells Lisa as much, hinting that the other girl is free to leave, but Lisa stays, tucking the blankets under Jennie’s chin with an attentiveness that makes the Korean girl’s chest constrict.

Catching sight of the clock on her wall, Jennie has the presence of mind to ask, “Shouldn’t you be at work right now?”

Lisa shrugs. “I was, but I got someone to cover for me when you called.”

And as self-centered as she is, Jennie knows that’s not something just anyone would do for her. Half sleep-addled and half feverish, she finds herself reaching for Lisa’s hand. Ignoring the shiver that slides down her spine (which could be the fever, but probably isn’t), she sleepily mumbles, “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Lisa says, giving the older girl’s hand a gentle squeeze.

“What happened to the girl with all the pick-up lines?” Jennie asks, eyelids drooping and words garbled.

Her drowsiness overtakes her then, blanketing her in a thick fog. Straddling the line between awake and asleep, Jennie can’t tell if she’s already dreaming when she hears, as though from a great distance, Lisa respond,

“She found what she’s been looking for.”

Sometimes, change is slow. It’s the shift between seasons, the subtle lengthening of the days, each imperceptibly warmer than the last. It’s waking up to birdsong and flowers bloomed in secret and the realization that, seemingly all at once, spring has arrived.

It’s how Tzuyu feels when she finds herself cooking dinner for Chaeyoung and Sana on a Monday night.

She’d been studying with Sana at the Nursery (a name she and Chaeyoung don’t love but have learned to live with) when Chaeyoung came home from Arts Collective, starving. On the one hand, it seemed impolite to make food just for the two of them since Sana was already at their apartment.

But on the other, Tzuyu’s gotten so used to having Sana around that it didn’t seem strange at all to include the Japanese girl in her plans.

Nearly every day, Tzuyu meets Sana in the library after practice to study together. She still helps the older girl with statistics from time to time, but most days, they just sit together and do their own work. And when Sana finishes her shift at the library, they often end up at one of their apartments. Papers sprawled out (and typically forgotten) on someone’s dining table, they spend almost every evening just talking to each other, all under the pretense of studying.

(Because really, Tzuyu’s too smart to be doing homework for all that time, and they both know it.)

So as Tzuyu slices pork belly to put over rice for the three of them, she doesn’t feel like things between her and Sana are significantly different than they were yesterday, or the day before. Rather, she feels as though her entire life – her habits and routines, the things that constitute normal to her – has adapted, slowly, to include Sana. And maybe she’s only noticing now.

The blonde in question leans against the kitchen counter, watching Tzuyu cook. It’s a little distracting, but after Sana offered to help and promptly dropped a knife centimeters from Tzuyu’s foot, the Taiwanese girl decided she prefers it this way.

That doesn’t change the fact that when Tzuyu looks up to ask Chaeyoung a question, she meets Sana’s golden-brown eyes, shining with open admiration, and nearly slices her own thumb off. She doesn’t look up again until she’s done cooking.

Once the food is ready, they clear their homework off the dining table and sit down to eat. Through mouthfuls of rice, Chaeyoung complains about how she wanted Dahyun to be her lab partner but ended up with BamBam. “He just texts Mina all day,” she grouses, stabbing angrily at a slice of pork. “He’s so useless. And _I’m_ useless, so we’re going to fail this assignment.”

“I forgot that they’re dating,” Sana giggles, and Tzuyu nods in agreement. Mina’s dating BamBam the way Mina does everything: quietly. She doesn’t talk about it much, and when they’re together in public, they act more like friends than a couple.

“It’s way better than Momo and Heechul,” Chaeyoung acknowledges, pulling a face. “They act like they have to touch tongues every five minutes or they’ll die.”

“That reminds me,” Sana says, turning to Tzuyu. “What’re you doing on Saturday?”

“You already asked today-”

“No,” Sana chuckles, eyes flicking down for a second. “We’re going out for Momo’s birthday. It was a few weeks ago, but we never do anything on time. Do you want to come?”

Before Tzuyu can respond, Sana begins listing off people who’ll be attending, likely in an effort to convince the younger girl to go. She doesn’t have to, though, because Tzuyu was already going to say yes. That’s just what she does now. When Sana asks her to do something, Tzuyu – with one exception – says yes.

It’s not a great habit, she reflects six days later, trapped between the bar and a mass of sweaty bodies.

Music pounds through the nightclub, and neon lights pulsate in time with the thumping bass. It’s humid, hazy with cigarette smoke, and loud enough that Tzuyu doesn’t realize she’s being asked to dance until Dahyun and Lisa are already dragging her out onto the dance floor.

Sana stays at the bar with Momo and Mina to get another round of drinks. While they wait for the bartender to notice them, a tall man – mid-twenties, not especially handsome, but not unattractive – slides into the seat next to Sana.

“Me and my friend,” he gestures toward another guy, who grins at them from across the bar, “Want to buy you girls some drinks.”

Mina starts to decline, but Momo, sober enough to want another drink but drunk enough to accept one from a stranger, cuts her off, “I’ll never say no to free drinks.”

The man chuckles and flags the bartender down to order. He’s sitting a little close for Sana’s taste, but he strikes up a friendly enough conversation, so she entertains him.

When their drinks arrive, he hands one to each of them before suggesting they move to the dance floor. Momo trips when she stands, and Mina confiscates the older girl’s drink before she’s even had a sip, leaving it on the bar next to hers. Then the three Japanese girls follow the man into the heaving knot of people.

Shortly after, Sana starts to feel _weird_. The club blurs around her, colors melting, blending into one another, and she can’t think over the pounding of the music. The air is thick and hot, way too hot, and Sana’s vaguely aware of a hand on her hip, pulling her closer to the figure in front of her.

She can feel herself sinking, dipping out of consciousness. Before the darkness closes in on her, a single thought pushes through her cloudy mind and past her lips, coming out slurred,

“Where’s Tzuyu?”

Mina whips around when she hears Sana, frowning at the way the older girl slumps against the man grasping her waist. She’s been with Sana all night, and the blonde certainly didn’t drink enough to be this out of it.

Mina grabs Momo by the shoulders, interrupting the dark-haired girl’s dancing. “Can you go find Tzuyu?” She flicks her head toward Sana. “I’ll keep an eye on her.” Momo nods unsteadily and disappears into the crowd.

Mina turns back to collect Sana, only to find that the older girl has vanished. She stands on her toes to scan the club, finally spotting her half-stumbling, half-being dragged out the door of the club.

Mina panics, struggling to push her way through the crush of people. When she makes it across the room and out onto the street, she sees the man from earlier waiting by the curb, an arm slung around Sana’s waist. She calls out at them, but before she can reach Sana, she’s stopped by the man’s friend roughly grabbing her wrist.

“Leave her alone,” Mina growls, hoping she sounds braver than she feels.

“Relax, we’re just going to have some fun,” the man laughs, pulling Sana closer against his chest. The blonde whimpers quietly but leans against him, eyes half-lidded and glassy. Mina tugs her arm sharply, trying to free herself, but the man’s friend just holds on tighter.

“Sana, it’s okay. Tzuyu’s coming,” Mina reassures the older girl, who perks up slightly, lifting her head off the man’s chest to fix Mina with an unfocused gaze.

“Tzuyu?” she mumbles, pushing weakly against the man holding onto her.

He laughs, the harsh sound echoing off the pavement. “Look, she wants it,” he says, tangling a hand into Sana’s hair and turning her head to face his. The blonde makes a soft noise of protest, but her eyes flutter closed, and her body melts against his.

Mina watches helplessly as the man leans down to connect their lips, swallowing Sana’s objections. On instinct, the older girl’s hand snakes up to curl around the back of his neck, and the man smirks and pulls away. “See?”

Mina opens her mouth to respond, but she’s interrupted by a low voice, chilling in its severity,

“Get off of her.”

And there’s Tzuyu, standing under the flickering streetlights, long hair whipping in the breeze. She looks calm, nearly indifferent, as usual, but Mina knows the younger girl well enough to recognize the hard set of her jaw, the storm swirling in her eyes.

Tzuyu is angry.

In three long strides, the Taiwanese girl bridges the distance between them. Up close, she’s about the same height as the man, and she stares him down silently. Any regular person would quail under the force of Tzuyu’s gaze, but the man, drunk off his own hubris, just sneers at her, still gripping Sana’s hair. “And what are you gonna do about it?”

“I’m going to hurt you,” Tzuyu replies evenly. And even from a couple meters away, Mina shivers at the younger girl’s tone. From the corner of her vision, she sees Momo watching the confrontation with wide eyes.

“Right,” the man scoffs, swinging his free hand up. Whether he misjudged the distance between them or actually meant to hit Tzuyu, his hand connects with her left cheek hard, the slap ringing out loudly on the deserted sidewalk.

Mina and Momo both surge forward, but Tzuyu barely flinches, simply raising her head back up defiantly. A trickle of blood runs down the side of her face, oozing from where the man’s ring carved a divot into her cheek.

Tzuyu doesn’t even seem to notice, stepping closer still. “Let go.”

“I’m telling you,” the man explains arrogantly, tugging at a unresisting Sana, “She wanted it, the little slut. I was just helping-”

Tzuyu silences him with a swift punch to the throat. Before he can recover, she pulls Sana from his grasp, then swings her knee up into his groin. He collapses to the floor immediately, groaning in pain.

Tzuyu eyes him dispassionately. She can tell Sana’s been drugged by the way the blonde sags against her, legs too wobbly to support herself, and considers kicking him again for good measure, but his friend, spooked by the sudden turn of events, releases Mina and drags the man off the ground.

Cursing, they scramble down the street and into the night, leaving the four girls standing alone on the sidewalk.

“Tzuyu?” Sana whimpers, clutching onto the younger girl’s shirt.

“I’m here,” Tzuyu murmurs softly, brow furrowed in concern. At the sound of her voice, Sana relaxes against the taller girl, burying her face in the crook of Tzuyu’s neck.

Holding the blonde upright, Tzuyu turns to see Mina and Momo staring back at her in shock and awe. “I’ll take her home,” she tells Momo, who nods, mouth still agape.

Tzuyu flags down a taxi. The three of them bundle Sana into the car, and Tzuyu slides in afterward. As the door swings shut behind her, she hears Momo comment to Mina, “I guess _that’s_ why they call her Wrath.”

Then they’re off, driving toward Sana’s apartment.

The drive is short, but Sana’s fading fast, her speech growing less coherent by the second. “I was scared,” she whines into Tzuyu’s ear, shakily lifting her head off the younger girl’s shoulder. “Why did you leave me?”

“I’m sorry,” Tzuyu responds quietly, watching streetlamps flick past through the window. “I won't do it again.”

“You better not,” Sana scolds weakly as the cab pulls up at her apartment. “You can't. I need you.”

Something inside Tzuyu’s chest simultaneously swells and constricts at Sana’s words. She ignores both feelings, focusing instead on shepherding the older girl out of the car and into the building.

Sana practically collapses when they get through the door, so Tzuyu scoops her up, bridal-style, and carries her to her room, trying not to blush at the way the blonde noses against her neck. Once she makes sure Sana won’t roll off the bed, Tzuyu retreats to the kitchen to call Jihyo for advice.

The Korean girl picks up on the second ring. “There isn’t much you can do besides give her water,” Jihyo tells her, voice scratchy with sleep. “She won't remember anything in the morning, so just check on her and try to make her feel better if she’s still responsive.”

Tzuyu thanks the older girl – who chuckles out a raspy “that’s what I’m here for” – then hangs up and fills a glass of water before returning to Sana’s room. There, she finds the blonde curled up under the covers, a comma in the center of the mattress.

Sana stirs when Tzuyu sits at the edge of the bed. “C’mere,” she mumbles, sluggishly reaching an arm out to the younger girl. Only, as she does so, the blanket slips down her shoulders to reveal that while Tzuyu was in the kitchen, Sana had somehow managed to remove almost all of her clothing. 

Tzuyu quickly averts her eyes, cheeks warming. She stands up stiffly and moves to the other girl’s closet, retrieving something for Sana to wear.

“Don’t leave again,” Sana pleads, head lifting slightly as her eyes follow Tzuyu across the room.

“I’m not,” Tzuyu reassures her, grabbing the first sweatshirt she sees. She pauses, staring down at the faded, baby-blue fabric.

It’s hers, from Taiwan. She’d lent it to Sana after they’d been studying late one night, not really expecting to get it back. “I won't,” she promises gently, crossing the room to help the blonde wriggle into the hoodie.

Once it’s on, Sana tugs Tzuyu down next to her, nestling into the younger girl’s side. “Tell me something.”

“Like what?” Tzuyu asks, back against the headboard and left arm trapped under Sana’s shoulders.

“Anything,” Sana mumbles sleepily, tucking her head under Tzuyu’s chin. “Jus’ like it when you talk.”

Tzuyu stares down at the older girl for a moment. Sana’s eyes are closed, and a content, drowsy smile spreads across her lips. In the silence, Tzuyu can hear the sound of her own heart beating, tentative and honest.

“I like things that make sense,” she begins haltingly. “Like math and statistics. I understand numbers; they’re consistent, predictable. But you… you don’t make sense to me, Sana. I can’t tell what you’re thinking, and I never know what you’re going to do next.”

And even though Sana won’t remember any of this in the morning, Tzuyu’s voice trembles slightly as she continues, “You’re like the ocean. I never feel as out of my element as I do around you. And it’s scary because I have all these feelings, feelings for _you_ , that I don’t know what to do with.”

Now that she’s started, the confession comes out all at once, like it’s been waiting to be heard.

“There are times when I want to tell you, to try to explain how my days are better with you. But I don’t because I don’t know what you want, or if this is all still part of your game. And I think that’s the scariest part. That when you ask me out, I can’t tell if it’s just words, or if you mean it.

“The thing is,” Tzuyu pauses, glancing down at Sana. The older girl is well asleep, head heavy against Tzuyu’s collarbone. “Sometimes you look at me like you do. Like you mean it.”

Tzuyu lets out a quiet sigh, carefully extricating herself from Sana’s grasp and rising from the bed. She lingers a moment longer, staring down at the sleeping blonde.

“Sometimes, it feels like you do.”

Change is slow. Like the day’s passage or the shifting of the seasons. It takes time to grow, to adapt, to fit someone into your life.

But sometimes, change comes all at once. It’s the fall of the Twin Towers, the Berlin Wall, constructed overnight. It’s waking up one day to find that everything’s different.

Sana wakes up in Tzuyu’s sweatshirt, alone. Momo fills her in on the events of the previous night over coffee and ibuprofen.

“I got back right before she left.” Momo’s gaze is sharp, meaningful. “She was really worried about you.”

Sana spends the rest of the day waiting to see Tzuyu. She ghosts through Sprite Radio (thank god Dahyun invited Sooyoung to be a guest) and her shift at the library. By the time she finds herself outside Tzuyu’s door, it’s past seven.

Sana loiters in the hallway, thinking of what to say. Thank you, probably, or maybe an apology first. But before she’s made up her mind, the door abruptly swings open to reveal Tzuyu, smelling of freshly-cooked rice and toasted sesame oil. The Taiwanese girl stops short in the threshold, surprised to see Sana, and waits for the older girl to explain.

But Sana’s mind has gone blank. At the sight of Tzuyu, with those wide, dark eyes and a tiny cut adorning her left cheekbone, a pit opens up in Sana’s chest, and everything she planned to say flies out of her head. Instead, she blurts,

“Do you want to go out with me?”

She winces immediately after the words leave her mouth. Her mind races in time with her heart as she casts about for a way to backtrack, to retract the question that hangs, heavy and clumsy, in the space between them.

Still, Tzuyu says nothing, and after a few protracted seconds, Sana pulls her nervous gaze from the floor to find the younger girl staring at her intently, searching for something in Sana’s eyes.

And in three months of knowing, cheering for, observing (ogling), and studying with Tzuyu, Sana has never once been able to read the Taiwanese girl. Hardly one for subtlety, Sana’s never been able to pick up on the minute changes in Tzuyu’s expression, tone, posture that indicate what the other girl’s thinking.

But this time, for the first time, Sana sees it before Tzuyu responds. She sees it flicker across Tzuyu’s face, catches the flash behind the younger girl’s eyes.

The air shifts between them.

Then, quietly, Tzuyu says,

“Yes.”


End file.
